Oral Answers to Questions

WALES

The Secretary of State was asked—

Borders

Win Griffiths: What plans he has to visit Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain and Knockin to discuss (a) the impact of the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill and (b) the funding of higher education as they affect communities near the border of England and Wales.

Peter Hain: Although I have no such plans to visit at present, the Wales Office is working closely to ensure that cross- border issues in health and education are fully considered.

Win Griffiths: I am sure that the people of Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain and Knockin would be pleased to see my right hon. Friend, but if foundation hospitals go ahead in England, can he guarantee equality of access for treatment for patients in Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain, or any other part of Wales, if they have to have treatment in England?
	Conversely, can my right hon. Friend guarantee for students from Knockin, or any other part of England, the prospect of the same financial treatment as students from Wales if they go to Welsh universities?

Peter Hain: As my hon. Friend will be aware, the Bill that is now going through the House has guaranteed that Welsh patients being treated in English hospitals and English patients being treated in Welsh hospitals will have their rights protected. As it happens, the numbers of English residents being treated in Welsh hospitals and the number of Welsh patients being treated in English hospitals appear to be rising, especially in such border areas. That is because more people are being treated under the NHS in Wales than ever before; the same is true of the NHS in England.
	So far as students are concerned, of course their rights will continue to be the same. They will have the right to study in Wales, as many choose to, and as many Welsh students will continue to have the right to study in England.

Lembit �pik: Does the Minister accept that the many positive differences between Wales and England in relation to higher education and health, including Assembly learning grants for students, the retention of community health councils and the extension of free dental checks and free prescriptions were thanks to the Liberal Democrats when they were in government in Wales? Does he agree with the obvious conclusion that if the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) opposes top-up fees and foundation hospitals, which could poach nurses from the Welsh health system, he should vote for the Liberal Democrats?

Peter Hain: The hon. Gentleman is never afraid to exaggerate. Indeed, I quote from the Lib Dems' campaign guide to the last elections:
	Be wicked, act shamelessly, stir endlessly, and embarrass the Administration. Don't be afraid to exaggerate.
	He is at it again. In truth, a Labour-led Government in Wales has delivered all these excellent policies, and will continue to do so over the next four years.

Jon Owen Jones: The Secretary of State needs to re-read the Bill on the bringing in of foundation hospitals, because it does not offer a guarantee that Welsh patients will have the same legal rights as English patients. As regards the good folk of Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain, their nearest acute hospital is the Royal Shrewsbury hospital, and they get their services there. What is the Secretary of State going to do to ensure that they get a guarantee of services equal to those on the other side of the border?

Peter Hain: As my hon. Friend knows, cross-border flows have been going on for many years, sometimes because people want specialised care, sometimes for geographical reasons and sometimes for traditional reasons. In the end, the issue comes down to who wishes to commission those particular servicesthe GP or the other relevant authority. Welsh and English patients alike will get the extra opportunities afforded by the massive investment that is going into our health service under Labour.

European Constitution

Peter Luff: What recent assessment he has made of the impact of the proposed new European constitution on the National Assembly for Wales.

Peter Hain: In line with the United Kingdom proposals to the European Convention on the Future of Europe, the draft constitutional treaty will, for the first time, formally recognise the involvement of the regions of member states such as Wales in European Union business.

Peter Luff: The part-time Secretary of State is an honest manthe Government's licensed conscience, one might almost say. He knows that the Convention is much more than just a tidying up. Do not the people of Wales deserve a referendum on the constitution, just as they did on the National Assembly?

Peter Hain: Nojust as the Conservatives never gave the people of Wales a referendum on the Single European Act in 1986, whereby far more British vetoes were surrendered by Mrs. Thatcher than in the entire 30 years of British membership of the European Union, and just as they were not given a referendum on the Maastricht treaty. Indeed, as I remember, the hon. Gentleman voted against a referendum on the Maastricht treaty.

Peter Luff: indicated assent.

Peter Hain: Well, there you are. The fact is that the new constitutional treaty, when it is finally negotiated, will be a good deal for Britain, advancing our democratic rights and for the first time giving our national Parliamentsand, indeed, the National Assembly for Walesconsultative rights in vetting any new legislative proposal from Brussels. The hon. Gentleman should welcome that.

Bill Wiggin: Is the Secretary of State telling my hon. Friend that because he is worried about losing the new constitution, or because he is worried about a pathetic turnout like the 38 per cent. that we saw for the Welsh Assembly elections?

Peter Hain: I think we should start looking at the turnouts in all elections over recent yearsincluding, probably, the turnout in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. Turnouts have fallen during that time, which is or should be of concern to us all.
	As for the issue of whether there should or should not be a referendum, the Conservatives have sought to frighten people into believing that this means the end of English and British civilisation. The truth is that the new constitutional treaty will mean more democratic rights for British citizens and, for the first time, more rights for the House of Commons: for the first time, the House will be able to vet any new Brussels proposals. That is a democratic advance. Instead of spreading fear and dishonestly peddling all sorts of misapprehensions about the treaty, its critics should look at the facts.

Manufacturing Investment

Nicholas Winterton: If he will make a statement on prospects for manufacturing investment in Wales.

Mark Tami: What discussions he has had with the First Secretary regarding investment in manufacturing in North Wales.

Peter Hain: There is evidence of increasing confidence in manufacturing investment in Wales, our high-technology industry and its highly skilled work force, symbolised by the massive Airbus investment at Broughton.

Nicholas Winterton: The Secretary of State paints a rather rosy picture, which contradicts the reality. The number of manufacturing jobs in Wales has been falling consistently since June 2000, and between that date and December 2000 it fell by more than 25,000. Manufacturing output has also declined consistently in recent years. CBI Wales blames Government policies such as the climate change levy, the packaging regulations and

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is supposed to be asking a supplementary question. The Secretary of State will now try to answer it.

Peter Hain: The hon. Gentleman is quite right: there have been manufacturing job losses in Wales. However, 25,000 new manufacturing jobs have been created over a similar period. As an expert on manufacturing, the hon. Gentleman will know that a churning process is going on throughout the modern industrialised world. Higher-value-added manufacturing jobs are coming into Wales, while some at the lower end are leaving. According to Manpower Services
	There is now increasing stability and confidence amongst Welsh employers, which is good news for both employers and job seekers in Wales.

Mark Tami: My right hon. Friend said that he had recently visited Airbus at Broughton. As I am sure he will agree, it demonstrates that Wales can be a world leader in value-added manufacturing. Does he also agree that we should do more to help supplier companies to site themselves around such facilities?

Peter Hain: Yes, I do agree. Airbus at Broughton, which is indeed a world-class centre, ought to be an increasing magnet for supplier companies. Evidence shows that when such a cluster of excellence is created it is good for the host manufacturerin this case, Airbusgood for the supplier companies and good for the whole region.

Elfyn Llwyd: A few moments ago the Secretary of State said that there was confidence in the high-tech manufacturing sector in Wales. How does that square with the fact that 200 jobs are to go at Hoya Lens in Wrexham this week?
	When will the research and development tax credit be fleshed out? Despite the headline-grabbing of a few months ago, nothing has happened so far. Moreover, there is not a word about manufacturing on the Wales Office website. Why?

Peter Hain: Yes, Hoya in Wrexham is to lose 200 jobs, although its sister companywhich, I think, employs 220 peopleis staying. It is moving jobs to Thailand, but it is keeping its UK base in Wrexham, where there is an excellent base for economic activity.
	I think that there should be more recognition from Plaid Cymru that the Welsh economy outperformed the British economy as a whole last year. There was an estimated growth of 2.2 per cent., compared with the 1.8 per cent. forecast by British Strategies a few months ago.

Ian Lucas: Thanks to its loyal Wrexham work force, Hoya Lensthat is the correct namemade a profit in the United Kingdom of 1 million last year. It paid its Wrexham work force back by making 240 of them redundant on Monday this week. Will the Secretary of State meet urgently with me to make representations to that company about the disgraceful way in which it has treated its work force, about the general rights of workers in the United Kingdom, about the road transport infrastructure in north-east Wales and about the future of manufacturing in the proud manufacturing base of Wrexham and the rest of Wales?

Peter Hain: Having gone to Wrexham on a number of occasions, including with my hon. Friend, to visit the manufacturing centre of excellence there, I confirm my own concern and criticism about the decision. I will certainly work with him to see what we can do and make it my business to ensure that the First Minister works with the other agencies concerned to ensure that those workers are provided with a good future.

Nigel Evans: The part-time Secretary of State for Wales is complacent about the job losses at Hoya in Wrexham. It is not churnit is burn as far as manufacturing jobs are concerned. The general secretary of the union Amicus has stated that 20 jobs are lost in manufacturing every hour of the day, and at that rate all manufacturing jobs will be gone within the next 25 years, so what action plan do the Government have to stop the rot and to expand the manufacturing base in Wales?

Peter Hain: The hon. Gentleman makes jibes about part-time but it was his party's policy at the last election to merge the Secretary of State for Wales's job with another post. In fact, according to the BBC website, it wanted to merge the position with that of the Leader of the House of Commons. As for part-timers, they are a bunch of moonlighters on the Conservative Benches. He should acknowledge that business confidence in Wales is now greater than anywhere else in the United Kingdom, and that our record on employment is better than that in the rest of Europe and the United States. He should start to support the economic powerhouses generating more jobs in Wales instead of continually attacking them.

Nigel Evans: I think that the part-time Secretary of State protests too much. He knows that manufacturing is a greater percentage of gross domestic product in Wales than it is in the rest of Britain, yet the Government are doing nothing to stop the rot. Instead, the Welsh Assembly is squandering vital objective 1 money, missing its own targets, and it may even have to give some of the money back, yet as manufacturing jobs disappear the number of people who work at the Assembly has gone up from 2,275 in 1999 to 3,451 today. The number of spin doctors is being doubled from three to six and 8,000 has been spent on advertising those useless 150,000 jobs for spin doctors. How many manufacturing jobs need to be exported abroad before the Minister fights as hard for their jobs as he did to get two jobs for himself?

Peter Hain: That comes from a party that saw more manufacturing bombed out than under the Luftwaffe in Wales. [Hon. Members: Answer.] Yes I shall. I shall answer with facts instead of Tory myths. Unemployment is down 46 per cent. in Wales since April 1997. Wales has seen the biggest fall in unemployment over the past year of any of the UK regions. Employment in Wales has risen by 69,000 over the past year. There have been manufacturing losses but more manufacturing jobs have been created in parallel. The picture is of a buoyant Welsh economy meeting the challenges of the future and doing much better than many economies across Europe.

Nigel Evans: The part-time Secretary of State for Wales knows that there has been a net loss in manufacturing jobs. If it were the manufacturing of greasy poles that was in decline, I am sure that it would get the full attention of the part-time Secretary of State for Wales. He knows that there has been a net overall loss in manufacturing jobs[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. There is far too much noise. [Hon. Members: Hear, hear.] Order.

Nigel Evans: The part-time Secretary of State for Wales knows that there has been a net lossthe unions are saying it and those who have lost their jobs have felt it. Will the part-time Secretary of State now urgently set up a taskforce involving representatives from manufacturing, business and the Welsh Development Agency to look at matters such as red tape, European directives, the climate change levy, national insurance business rates and the landfill tax? Why is business profitability in manufacturing the lowest since 1993, or is he so busy with his other part-time job that he simply does not have the time?

Peter Hain: The facts are that employment in Wales is at record levels, there are more business start-ups in Wales than anywhere else in Britain and business confidence there is rising. What the hon. Gentleman should do is to start supporting the Welsh economy, instead of continually attacking it.

Broadband

Jackie Lawrence: What recent discussions he has had with (a) ministerial colleagues and (b) National Assembly Secretaries on progress in rolling out broadband services in West Wales.

Don Touhig: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I meet ministerial colleagues and we have regular bilateral meetings with National Assembly Ministers; we have discussed broadband, among other subjects. I have invited British Telecom to make a presentation on broadband at the Wales Office, and I have invited all Members of Parliament representing Welsh seats, including the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), to join us on that occasion, when colleagues may learn more about broadband in Wales.

Jackie Lawrence: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Milford Haven, which is the largest town in my constituency, is due to go live with broadband on 24 September. That is an important economic development for my constituency, but bearing in mind the 100 million that the Assembly has provided for roll-out of broadband in Wales, will he have discussions with Ministers in the Assembly and with his colleagues here to try to get the roll-out extended to smaller towns such as Fishguard, given the economic development potential?

Don Touhig: I certainly welcome the roll-out of broadband in Milford Haven. I am advised that Fishguard has in fact hit its target for broadband and can expect the broadband exchange to be rolled out within the next three months.

Roger Williams: The IT revolution was meant to be the means of ensuring that rural Wales could take part in the economic growth that the rest of the nation enjoys, but rural parts of west Wales and mid-Wales have still yet to receive broadband. [Interruption.] Will the Minister consider the use of satellite technology to get broadband to rural areas, and particularly to Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain, which is in the Liberal Democrat-held constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik)? [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Before the Minister replies, I should point out that the Chamber is getting far too noisy. That always seems to happen at this time on a Wednesday.

Don Touhig: I think that it is the attraction of Welsh questions, Mr. Speaker.
	My colleagues in the Assembly are looking at maximising the use of objective 1 funding for two major projects. The first is aimed at supporting a range of innovative local and regional projects, and the second at increasing broadband availability in areas that are unlikely to be enabled, such as the rural community to which the hon. Gentleman refers. If he joins us at the Wales Office for the British Telecom presentation, he can pursue the matter further and perhaps we will have some good news for him.

Betty Williams: My hon. Friend will be aware that approximately 44 per cent. of the population of Wales are now covered by the asymmetric digital subscriber line service, but is he also aware that certain pockets in my constituency, for example, do not receive this service? Will he use his good offices to try to improve this service in the near future?

Don Touhig: Yes, indeed. Sixty-one of Wales's 440 telephone exchanges are now ADSL-enabled, and a further 26 exchanges will reach the trigger level shortly. I shall certainly take up my hon. Friend's point, but I invite her, too, to join us at the presentation at the Wales Office, when these matters can be put directly to British Telecom.

Common Agricultural Policy

Ian Liddell-Grainger: If he will make a statement on discussions with the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the common agricultural policy in Wales.

Don Touhig: My right hon. Friend and I are kept abreast of developments by Cabinet colleagues, and I will be discussing the matter with Assembly Ministers next week.

Ian Liddell-Grainger: In view of the fact that the common agricultural policy is now a schizophrenic documentin other words, France and Germany are favoured over the UKwhat will the Minister do to try to bolster Welsh agriculture, given that it is in such a state under a Secretary of State who is double-hatted at the best of times?

Don Touhig: I am not clear about the hon. Gentleman's view of the recent discussions on CAP reform, but I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for her work on delivering a very good deal. I certainly welcome the package as a significant step towards supporting and sustaining agriculture in Wales. My colleagues in the Assembly and the National Farmers Union of Wales have welcomed it, and the Farmers Union of Wales wants further discussions on those developments. It is a good news story for Wales, which will benefit Welsh agriculture.

Huw Irranca-Davies: May I echo the sentiments of farmers in my constituency, who have expressed their satisfaction that CAP reforms will lead to the freedoms that they need to develop their own businesses? However, there is immediate concern at the roll-out of biosecurity measures on 1 August and their effects on the blackmill grass-based market. Will the Minister join me in making representations to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Assembly to ensure that small indigenous markets do not lose out from those essential biosecurity measures?

Don Touhig: My hon. Friend has made several representations to me and other colleagues on biosecurity measures. We all recognise that they are essential if we are to avoid a repeat of foot and mouth problems that the country experienced a little while ago. I will certainly take account of my hon. Friend's point and bring it to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Simon Thomas: Has the Minister had an opportunity to reflect on two votes taken last week by the European Parliament? One relates to the labelling of genetically modified crops and food, the other to the liabilities arising from the planting of such crops, and they will both impact on the CAP and planting policy in Wales. The Minister will know that the National Assembly for Wales has stated clearly that it wants Wales to remain free of GM crops. Will he give an undertaking today that, if the Assembly maintains that view, Wales will remain a genetically modified commercial crop-free area?

Don Touhig: I take the hon. Gentleman's point. Although I have not read the documents to which he referred, I will make it my business to acquaint myself with them and take account of what they say. I cannot give the assurance that he asks for on GM crops in Wales. I think that we have to be very careful. We must continue with the discussions and studies that are currently going on and ensure that they are properly evaluated. I urge a further word of caution. I can remember a time when Wales had nuclear-free zones, but such things are often little more than gesture politics. We have to discover what is best for agriculture in Wales and make a proper assessment before making our judgment[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House must come to order.

Inward Investment

Michael Fabricant: What plans he has for overseas visits to promote inward investment in Wales in the next six months.

Don Touhig: In line with the Government's objective that Britain should be fully engaged in the European Union, the Secretary of State and I are considering a programme of contacts and possible visits to as many EU accession countries as possible. We will use those opportunities to promote Welsh business and Welsh industry.

Michael Fabricant: I am pleased to hear that, and I am sure that the whole House knows that the Minister and the Secretary of State want to do their best for Wales. However, is it not the case that, in his position as Leader of the House, the Secretary of State has to chair three Cabinet Committees and be here in London every Thursday to take business questions? Once a month he has to be here in London in order to answer questions to the Leader of the House, so where will he find the time to go abroad and promote Wales?

Don Touhig: I do not think that anyone can doubt the time and commitment that my right hon. Friend gives to Wales. It is absolutely first class, and he will not let up in his determination to do his best for Wales. He constantly promotes a world-class Wales. The hon. Gentleman talks about other jobs and other responsibilities, so why does he not ask the shadow Secretary of State for Wales how he had time to walk up and down Whitehall with a for sale placard on the day of the reshuffle? Clearly, he had nothing to do, and I thought that he was a newsagent, not an estate agent.

Kevin Brennan: Under devolution we have a First Minister and a National Assembly. The First Minister recently visited Barcelona, where he met with the bosses of Celsa, which is reopening the steel plant in Cardiff, thanks to the partnership between the Government in Westminster and the National Assembly in Cardiff. Is not that an example of the way in which devolution can work to bring inward investment to Wales?

Don Touhig: My hon. Friend is right. Indeed, I was in the Czech Republic last year with seven companies and Wales Trade International, to promote Welsh jobs and business and to forge links. We have a good and effective partnership between the Labour Governments in the Assembly and in Westminster. It is working well in the interests of the people of Wales. They certainly appreciated that when they gave us a sound vote of confidence on 1 May, by returning a Labour majority in the Assembly.

PRIME MINISTER

The Prime Minister was asked

Engagements

Annette Brooke: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 2 July.

Tony Blair: This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I will have further such meetings later today.

Annette Brooke: What progress is being made in the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

Tony Blair: The search for weapons of mass destruction, and evidence of the programmes, is being carried out by the Iraq survey group. It is some 1,200 strong and began its work a short time ago. It will be able to investigate all the sites, and interview all the witnesses and experts. We have already made it clear that the findings of the Iraq survey group should, of course, be publicly available.

Bill O'Brien: Has my right hon. Friend had the opportunity to consider the report published by the Institution of Civil Engineers on future energy production and supply in this country? In that report, criticism is made of the Department of Trade and Industry White Paper on energy supply, which would see the demise of the coal industry by 2016. By 2020, we would need to rely on imported fuels to the tune of 90 per cent. and that is obviously causing great concern in mining areas. Will my right hon. Friend agree to meet several Members who represent mining areas to discuss that important report?

Tony Blair: Of course I will be happy to meet my hon. Friend and other Members from mining constituencies. I understand the concern that my hon. Friend mentions, but we have put substantial additional support into the mining industry in the past few years. It is important that we also maintain an energy supply that is fully competitive. That is under discussion with my hon. Friend and other hon. Members at the present time.

Iain Duncan Smith: In 1998, the Deputy Prime Minister said that it was a national disgrace that one in 10 trains ran late. Can the Prime Minister tell us how many trains run late now?

Tony Blair: The punctuality figures are worse since the Hatfield rail accident. Punctuality figures until Hatfield were stable for several years. After Hatfield, it was recognised that the state of the rail infrastructure required a massive amount of additional investment. That is why, over the next 10 years, we will roughly double the amount of public and private investment in the railways.

Iain Duncan Smith: They have not just got worse: they are twice as bad as when the Deputy Prime Minister said that they were a national disgrace. One in five trains now run latetwice as bad. No wonder the CBI said today that
	performance on the railways has yet to return to the levels of the late 1990s.
	Exactly how long will it take to get back to those levels?

Tony Blair: The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that rail punctuality has not returned to the levels of the late 1990s. That is for the very reason that the CBI give and that I have just givenafter the Hatfield rail disaster it was recognised that the state of the rail infrastructure was infinitely worse than we supposed. That was as a result of years of underinvestment in our rail infrastructure, which we are now putting right. We are set virtually to double the amount of public and private investment in our railways. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will now say whether he agrees with the commitment that we have given to the extra spending, because the only way to achieve a better performance on the railways is for that investment to be made. We are committed to it. Is he?

Iain Duncan Smith: As ever, the Prime Minister blames everybody else when the Government fail. Network Rail has said that it will take until 2010that is seven more yearsjust to get back to what the Government inherited. It is going to cost 58 billion just to get things back to where they were when the Government came to office. That is another example of taxpayers paying more and getting less. The part-time Transport Secretary now seems to think that things have to get worse before they can get better. I do not recall the British people being aware of the campaign song that said, Things can only get worse. Is that not another reason why nobody believes a word that the Prime Minister says anymore?

Tony Blair: Railway punctuality has got worse post-Hatfield for the very simple reason that I have given, which is also the reason that the CBI gave. The combination of underinvestment over many years and a catastrophic privatisation implemented by the previous Conservative Government have given us this situation. However, the right hon. Gentleman is right to say that it will take billions of pounds of extra investment over the next few years to put matters right. Everybody agrees about that, but that is investment that we are committed to and he is opposed to. I gave him an opportunity a moment or two ago to say categorically whether he was in favour of this extra investment. He quoted the CBI, which says that it supports the 10-year plan and wants that investment to go in. That is our position, and the CBI position. Is it his? [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I call Richard Burden.

Richard Burden: My right hon. Friend will be aware that a short while ago Alstom announced that it had secured a multi-million pound order for tube trains in London. It followed that announcement by saying that it was going to bring to an end 150 years of train production at its Birmingham factory, threatening more than 1,000 jobs. On the day that workers from Alsthom are going to France to say that they are not prepared to have their jobs go down the tube in this way, I ask my right hon. Friend to back them.

Tony Blair: First of all, I understand my hon. Friend's concern and anxiety for his constituents. He will understand that the Department of Trade and Industry is willing to meet representatives of the company and of the unions at the plant, and of course my hon. Friend, to see what we can do. In the end, these are decisions that have to be taken by the company, but we will give whatever help we possibly can to my hon. Friend's constituents. At the present time, we are in discussions with the company about its restructuring plans. I hope that we can get a positive outcome.

Charles Kennedy: In his evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Foreign Secretary said that the claim that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes was not in the original draft of the dossier released by the Government. However, the very next day, Alastair Campbell contradicted that, and said that it was in the very first draft. Will the Prime Minister please clarify once and for all which version of events is correct?

Tony Blair: In fact, the matter was clarified. The clarification is this: in the first draft presented by the Joint Intelligence Committee, the 45 minutes claim was there. The allegation that the claim was inserted by anyone in No. 10 Downing street or any Minister is completely and totally incorrect. The right hon. Gentleman has been backing that claim. If he has evidence to support the claim that we inserted intelligence into the dossier, let him now state the basis for that allegation.

Charles Kennedy: rose

Hon. Members: Come on!

Mr. Speaker: Order. There should be no shouting.

Charles Kennedy: The Prime Minister is aware that the Foreign Secretaryelected and accountable to this Housegave one version of events, and that an unelected member of staff in his No. 10 office gave a different version of events. Does the Prime Minister not agree that the best way to clarify the matter, once and for all, would be for him to go to that Committee and spell out exactly what happened?

Tony Blair: It actually has been clarified. The Foreign Affairs Committee will make its report and the Intelligence and Security Committee will make its report. They have been given the fullest possible co-operation by the Government. I repeat, as I have from the very beginning, that the claimit is a perfectly simple claimthat, contrary to the advice and insistence of the security services, the 45-minute claim was inserted in the dossier last September is completely untrue. Let me repeat once again: if anyone actually has any evidence, let them produce it. I think that before a claim of that seriousness is made, at least some evidence should be produced.

Michael Clapham: May I reinforce what my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien) said? I heard my right hon. Friend's answer that he is willing to meet a delegation of mining MPs, but in the meantime, will he consider whether he should declare the deep coal industry a strategic reserve and that there should be no future colliery closures, including that proposed for Selby?

Tony Blair: I am afraid I cannot give my hon. Friend that assurance or guarantee. It is important, especially now that the industry is in private hands, that we balance its interests as a whole with those of the energy supply of the country. As I said, over the past few years we have put a large sum of money into supporting the coal industry. We are working with the industry to see that it has a viable future. I shall be delighted to meet my hon. Friend and other representatives from mining constituencies, but we have to be careful about giving completely open-ended commitments to any industry.

James Clappison: Last Monday's vote on hunting could have a very bad effect on the rural economy. Will the Prime Minister at least clarify his own position? Will the Government use the Parliament Act if the House of Lords amends the Hunting Bill so as to reject a total ban?

Tony Blair: On the Parliament Act, I have nothing to add to what my right hon. Friend the Minister for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality has already said. I supported the compromise proposals that he put forward; it is now for the other House to consider the Hunting Bill.

Louise Ellman: I welcome the progress that is being made on the road map to peace in the middle east. Does the Prime Minister agree that if real peace is to be achieved, the Palestinians and other Arabs must stop preaching hatred of Jews in Israel and around the world? What representations has the Prime Minister made to the current Defence Minister of Syria who has written:
	The Jew can kill you and take your blood in order to make your Zionist bread?

Tony Blair: In general terms, my hon. Friend's point is right. It is a point that we make to Arab countries and, indeed, to representatives of the Palestinian Authority. It is important that we get the peace process under way. There was a lot of scepticism about whether we could make progress in the middle east, but I think that people now understand that there is that real and genuine possibility and that we must have a reduction of hatred and tension on all sides. That certainly includes the abolition of sources of incitement to racial hatred, such as those mentioned by my hon. Friend.

Iain Duncan Smith: With the World Trade Organisation meeting fast approaching, does the Prime Minister agree that the best way to raise living standards in the developing world is to reduce tariff barriers and to promote free trade?

Tony Blair: Yes, of course I do; that is precisely the position of the Government.

Iain Duncan Smith: Does the Prime Minister also agree that the negotiations to achieve that must be balanced? Many of the poorest countries feel that they are outgunned by richer countries in those negotiations, and as a result they have not been able to benefit from the growth in free trade. At the last WTO round, the EU had more than 500 experts on their side, whereas many of the poorest countries had literally nobody to represent them. Will the Prime Minister consider establishing a specific advocacy fund to make sure that the poorest countries can make their voice heard?

Tony Blair: First of all, of course, I entirely agree that the reduction of tariffs is immensely important. I actually welcomed the deal that was done in the Agriculture Council; I pay tribute to the work of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in negotiating it. It is important that Europe plays its part, with other countries, in making sure that tariffs are reduced. It is also important, incidentally, that we put that alongside a series of measures, such as increased aid and development, and this country, under this Government, has reversed the policy of the previous Government and has been putting investment into aid and development.
	Of course it is important that we give developing countries whatever help we can. I am perfectly happy to look at the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion, but many of the countries that are going to the WTO would regard it as their position to ensure for themselves that they have the right advocacy.

Iain Duncan Smith: That is exactly the point. The reality is that, as I said last time, more than 500 EU advisers swamped all the poorer countries. I understand from what the Prime Minister has just said that he has now agreed to look at the policy that the Conservative party has been promoting for some time[Interruption.] Oh yes, the Prime Minister has now undertaken to try to adopt our policy because, last week, his own DFID Minister dismissed[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Allow the right hon. Gentleman to speak.

Iain Duncan Smith: The Prime Minister is not aware that, last week, his own DFID Minister dismissed the whole idea, so I am glad that he has done a U-turn to accept our policy. Real trade and real justice mean access to free trade, and I hope that the Prime Minister accepts that.

Tony Blair: Let us be clear: over the years that the Conservative party was in office, the aid and development budget of this country fell, as a proportion of our national income; it is now rising every year under this Government. It is this Government who have been leading the way on third-world debt, and it is this Government who secured at the Agriculture Council, by qualified majority voting, the ability to make sure that we can give a decent offer from Europe at the WTO in September. When the right hon. Gentleman goes on about the 500 EU advocates, why is it that I sort of think that he is more interested in making a point about the EU than about the developing world?

Parmjit Dhanda: As a scientist at heart, may I ask my right hon. Friend to join me in paying tribute to scientists in the House and, indeed, across the countrypeople involved in engineering and technologyand the role that they play in our economy? What measures will he take to enhance the science, technology and innovation base?

Tony Blair: The point that my hon. Friend makes is absolutely vital for the future of this country. We have increased science investment from the Government and with the private sector up to 2 billion, rising to 3 billion, over the next few years. That will play an absolutely vital part in making sure that our industry is competitive for the future. I pay tribute to the work that British scientists do. I can tell my hon. Friend that, with 1 per cent. of the world's population, we now fund 5 per cent. of the science, and that is a good omen for the future of industry and science in this country.

Andrew Robathan: Does the Prime Minister think it appropriate that a senior Minister should insult our armed forces by saying that all soldiers are boneheads; have a benefit in kind worth 12,000 a year, contrary to the ministerial code, and unregistered, contrary to the advice of the Standards and Privileges Committee; assault members of the general public; use foul language in front of House of Commons staff, while breaking the rules of the House; and all because he arrogantly believes that the rules only apply to the little people? When will the Prime Minister sack the Deputy Prime Minister? Or does he believe that, at 65, he should be the first beneficiary of the new policy on ageism?

Tony Blair: I will tell the House what I believe. I believe that the best commitment from a Government to our armed forces is not visiting 20 per cent. cuts, which is what was implemented by the previous Government[Interruption]yesbut delivering the first real-terms increase in defence spending for more than 10 years: this side's record; that side's shame.

Ian Davidson: Will the Prime Minister join me in welcoming the Tory discovery of world poverty, which is only fair because they caused much of it? Is he aware of the events that took place last weekend in my constituency and others, sponsored and organised by those in the trade justice movementOxfam, Christian Aid, the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund and other organisationswho called for the Government to do more to assist the third world, even though they recognise that this Government have taken the lead in many of those matters? I have here a petition, signed by thousands of my constituents. Will the Prime Minister undertake to give me a reply, explaining what more the Government are doing?

Tony Blair: We will continue to try to get the best possible offer, not just from Europe but from other developed countries, at the World Trade Organisation in September. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend's point about the importance of free trade for the developing world. We believe that a good WTO round could add something in the region of $150 billion to wealth in the world as a whole. Of course, it is extremely important to recognise that we will only get a decent deal out of Europe by being constructively engaged in Europe. It is as a result of being engaged, forming the right alliances and having, at the Agriculture Council, qualified majority voting, that we managed to get the deal that we did.

Andrew Rosindell: In view of the White inquiry into Islington child abuse scandals of the 1980s and 1990s, which described Islington council as a chaotic organisation that breeds the conditions for dangerous and negligent practices in relation to child care, does the Prime Minister really think that his appointment as Minister for Children is well advised?

Tony Blair: My hon. Friend the Minister for Children was, of course, the Minister with responsibility for early years from 1998 to 2001. Let me tell the hon. Gentleman what she accomplished: free education for all four-year-olds[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I tell the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) that he has a habit of shouting, particularly at Prime Minister's Question Time. He will not do it.

Tony Blair: Those accomplishments were free education for all four-year oldsnow 88 per cent. of three-year-olds647,000 new child care places, and the development of the sure start programme, which, in constituencies across this country, is doing an immense amount for young people. That is a record of which she and we can be proud.

Mark Tami: Last summer, my constituent David Holloway was knocked down and killed by a coach while making his way from one of Ibiza's popular clubs to his hotel. He was one of many British victims to die on Spanish roads. The road from San Antonio to Ibiza town has no pavements and is poorly lit, and has a speed limit of 75 mph. Will the Prime Minister assure the House that he will do all in his power to approach the Spanish authorities to improve road safety in Spain so that young British lives are not lost?

Tony Blair: First, I take this opportunity to offer my deepest sympathy and condolences to Mr. Holloway's family. I understand that this matter has been investigated by the Spanish police and considered by a Spanish court. I can tell my hon. Friend that we have made representations about this particular road, and in 2001, local authorities introduced certain changes as a result of the matters that we raised. I will undertake to look at the matter again, however, in the light of what my hon. Friend has said.

Alan Reid: Pensioners who want to have their pensions paid through a Post Office account have to go through a long and complicated process. One of the steps is to phone the rather sinisterly named customer conversion centre. When pensioners phone, the first thing that they are told is, Yes, I know you want to open a Post Office card account, but . . . Is not the whole process designed to drive pensioners away from the post office? Will the Prime Minister intervene to simplify the process and start publicising the Post Office account positively? Otherwise, many small rural post offices will be forced to close.

Tony Blair: We do publicise the account positively. The hon. Gentleman will also understand, however, that many pensioners and many people nowadays prefer to receive the money in their bank account. Precisely for that reason, however, we have invested a very large sum of money in working with post offices to ensure that those who still want to get their money at the post office can do so. In the end, however, it is right to say that over a long period there has been a trend towards people receiving the money in their bank account, and it would be wrong to force people to receive it at the post office. We must enable them to do it, and we are doing so.

Mark Todd: Last week, this House passed a Bill to address various aspects of antisocial behaviour, including fly tipping and, through a late amendment, illegal campinga particular bane of the South Derbyshire constituency. Did my right hon. Friend share my puzzlement that the Bill did not receive a wider welcome in the House, and will he share the welcome that it has been given by my constituents?

Tony Blair: First, since I was previously asked a question by a Liberal Democrat, I think that it is extraordinary that the Liberal Democrats opposed many of the measures in the Anti-social Behaviour Bill. The whole purpose of the Bill is to give the police the power to deal with antisocial behaviour quickly and effectively through the use of fixed penalty notices and limitations on airguns and spray paints, for example. It is absolutely vital that that range of measures is put into place because it will make a significant difference to dealing with antisocial behaviour on our streets.

Peter Luff: Does the Prime Minister share my concern that figures given to me today by Worcestershire county council show that because of the growing revenue funding gap between Worcestershire and the national average, bringing our schools' staffing ratios in line with the national average would require 30 more teachers and 400 more support staff? Does that sound as if Worcestershire schools are getting a fair deal?

Tony Blair: Surely the hon. Gentleman would also want to point out that since we came to office, there are in fact about 200 more teachers, 500 more support staff and 250 more teaching assistants. Indeed, Worcestershire local education authority has allocated an extra 500 per pupil in real terms compared with 199798. I agree that we can always do more, but surely the policy that he proposes, which opposes such extra investment and would make 20 per cent. cuts across the board, is not going to help.

Lawrie Quinn: Has my right hon. Friend had an opportunity to study the report by Sheffield Hallam university on the seaside economy? Is he aware of the all-party seminar that was held at the Treasury yesterday? What contribution can he make to be a champion for seaside communities such as Scarborough and Whitby to ensure that every part of this country benefits from the policies that this Government promote, which are in stark contrast to the years of decline under the previous Government?

Tony Blair: My hon. Friend's point about seaside towns is obviously true because many parts of seaside towns suffer from high levels of unemployment and poor housing. That is why it is important that through elements such as the new deal, the working families tax credit and the new children's tax credit, we continue to invest in those communities and others. As a result of that additional investment, we have at least managed to reduce unemployment in his constituency and many others, which is why it would be so unfortunate if the Conservative party were able to scrap those measures.

George Osborne: Following the Sally Clark and Trupti Patel cases, will the Prime Minister confirm that the Crown Prosecution Service will review all cases in which the evidence of Professor Roy Meadow helped to secure a conviction? Will he instigate a broader inquiry on the way in which the criminal justice system deals with mothers who are accused of murdering their infant children?

Tony Blair: I understand from my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that the procedures are being reviewed. Perhaps I could investigate exactly what the review entails and write to the hon. Gentleman rather than giving him an answer off the top of my head. Of course, I understand the concern that has been voiced as a result of the case, and we plainly need to ensure that procedures are in line with what the public would expect. My right hon. Friend says that such a review is being undertaken, and I undertake to write to the hon. Gentleman with details of it.

Mike Hall: My right hon. Friend will be aware of major problems caused by youths who recklessly ride their scrambler bikes on parks and open spaces. May I advise him that in the Northwich part of my constituency last week, the police were able to apprehend the leader of a gang of bike riders? They arrested him, confiscated his bike and drove it around the estate so that everybody could see it. That was an excellent operation by the police in Northwich and Halton. Will my right hon. Friend reassure the House that we will give the necessary resources and power to the police and local authorities so that we may continue to bear down on antisocial behaviour?

Tony Blair: I know that my hon. Friend raises a matter of deep concern to many hon. Members, especially Labour Members. There is now the ability to confiscate bikes, which will form an important part of the new measures that come into place. Talking to police officers shows that they believe that the combination of powers to close down crack houses and take action against juveniles in respect of airguns, spray paints and bicycles, and the ability to use fixed penalty notices without the whole hassle of having to go to court, will make a significant difference to our local communities. Along with the much simpler procedures for antisocial behaviour orders, they amount to a substantial package. [Hon. Members: Get on with it.] I tell Conservative Members that there is no bigger issue in our communities than dealing with this problem.

Bill Wiggin: The Prime Minister is aware of the dramatic drop in the number of beds in Hereford hospital, but if I send him the letter that I have before me, will he look into the case of my constituent, Donald Jaques, whose ECG test was stopped when it became clear that he had a serious coronary problem, only to return to his GP to be told that he had to wait 10 months for a proper coronary angiogram? Will the Prime Minister please look into that real problem?

Tony Blair: I will certainly look into the individual case and will correspond with the hon. Gentleman on it. But before we leave the subject of cardiac care in the health service, I know he would want to acknowledge the dramatic increase in the number of heart operations performed in this country and the huge amount being done in cardiac and, indeed, cancer care. For that reason, there has been a significant drop in the number of deaths from heart disease in this country over the past few years. If what the hon. Gentleman describes is correct, it is obviously a serious situation, but it should not be taken as a general comment on the health service. The fact is that the vast majority of people get extremely good treatment within our national service today.

Aviation Health

John Smith: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to place a responsibility on airlines for the health, welfare and well-being of their passengers; in that connection, to amend the Carriage by Air Act 1961; and for connected purposes.
	Hon. Members may be surprised that such a Bill is being proposed at all. It would place a duty of care on airlines that use British airports and are registered in the United Kingdom for the health and welfare of their passengers. Surely airlines, just like any other business that provides a service for its customers, including other passenger carrierscoach companies or trainshave an automatic duty of care in common law for the health and welfare of their customers and passengers. But you might be surprised to hear, Mr. Speaker, that that is not the case. Uniquely, the world's airlines have no responsibility whatsoever for the health of their passengers. The airlines' liability is governed by a 75-year-old convention, the Warsaw convention of 1929, article 17 of which limits the liability of airlines purely to the safety of their passengers; they are in no way responsible for their health.
	At the time, the reason for that was understandable. In 1929, flying was a novel and pretty dangerous activity. Not many people did it and there certainly were not many paying passengers. Indeed, we were still flying biplanes and there was no such thing as pressurised cabins. The international community reached an agreementa settlementin which they decided, on the one hand, to limit the liability in damages for the death or injury of passengers and, on the other, to have no-fault compensation. That was perfectly rational, perfectly logical and perfectly reasonable in 1929. In 2003in the 21st centuryit is ludicrous that airlines have a responsibility for the safety of their passengers, but not for their health.
	Air travel is the fastest growing mode of public transport in the world. It happens to be, believe it or not, one of the safest modes of transport in the world. Unfortunately, there is now a wide body of evidence to suggest that it is an extremely dangerous and unhealthy mode of travel, but the airlines have no responsibility for our health.
	I am sure that the general public, including those on the 60 million flights abroad that Britons take in any one year, are not aware that when they step on an aeroplane their health is not protected in any way. But can one imagine a more controlled environment than an aircraft cabin? Where and how we sit is controlled; what we can do is, quite rightly, controlled; what we eat and drink is controlled; and even the very air that we breathe is controlled. But the airlines have no responsibility whatsoever for our health. That is an absurd and outrageous anomaly, and it is about time that the House addressed it.
	At this moment, the victims of deep vein thrombosis and their families are fighting a case in the Court of Appeal. I have taken advice on this matter, Mr. Speaker. Those poor people are trying to argue that a thrombosis caused by long-haul travel is an accident, as defined by the 1929 convention. They cannot go into court and simply argue that their relatives, who include my 29-year-old constituent, John Anthony Thomas, were killed by the airlines. Because of that limited liability, they will not have their day in court. Many people will be extremely surprised to hear that.
	Last month, in Cardiff county court, Judge Graham Jones ruled that the victims of the Girona air crash, who have suffered considerable psychological damage, can sue the holiday company, Thomson, precisely because he knew that, under the antiquated convention, they cannot sue the carriers, Britannia Airways. The situation is absurd and it needs to change. The travelling public have a right to be protected, and the House should lead the world in giving airline passengers that right by supporting the Bill.
	The Bill will place a duty on airlines to protect the health of their passengers. One could still have to go to court and prove that one's life had been endangered. We in the DVT campaign believe that at least one in 40 of all passengers travelling for over four hours develops a clot in a deep vein which can seriously damage their health and may even be fatal. If we are right, a huge number of people are affected. We wait for science to prove how many people are being killed by that dreadful condition and to identify the exact causal relationship between air travel and DVT, but there is not a serious clinician in the world who does not agree that there is a link between long-haul air travel and the incidence of DVT.
	This is an important Bill, and it is an honour for me to present it to the House. I do it in the name of my constituent, John Anthony Thomas, and all those who have died in the past two years from DVT as a direct result of an international long-haul flight. I do it for the families who are suffering terriblythe Christoffersons, the Browns, the Thomases and the Lambs. I could go on. I commend the Bill to the House.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. John Smith, Mr. Paul Tyler, Bob Spink, Mr. Elfyn Llwyd, Mr. David Kidney, Dr. Richard Taylor, Dr. Ian Gibson, Dr. Ashok Kumar, Mr. David Hinchliffe and Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody.

Aviation Health

Mr. John Smith accordingly presented a Bill to place a responsibility on airlines for the health, welfare and well-being of their passengers; in that connection, to amend the Carriage by Air Act 1961; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 11 July, and to be printed [Bill 136]. Opposition Day

[12th Allotted Day]

Road and Rail Transport

Mr. Speaker: We now come to the main business. I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

Tim Collins: I beg to move,
	That this House notes that since 1997 the fastest expansion in rail services, carriage of freight and passenger numbers in a century, huge forward orders for rolling stock, the fall of fares in real terms and the arrival on time of 90 per cent. of trains, have been replaced by cutbacks in train services, the axing of rail freight grants, abandonment of targets for growth in passenger numbers, a decision to increase fares in real terms and the arrival of 80 per cent. of trains on time; recognises that Network Rail has, to date, delivered a substantially worse performance at vastly higher cost to the taxpayer than Railtrack, and promises only to return to 2000 levels of train punctuality by 2010; condemns the fact that an increase since 1997 of over 10 billion per annum in taxes on the motorist has not been accompanied by any significant upgrading of the national road network; and calls for fair treatment for passengers, motorists and taxpayers alike.
	I shall begin by setting out a good half dozen policies introduced by the Government or their agencies that we thoroughly support and happily endorse as common-sense measures that should continue. [Hon. Members: What?] My hon. Friends should not get too concerned, as that is not the entire substance of my speech. However, let us start on a consensual note.
	First, the Government were entirely right to establish the rail accident investigation branch in the Railways and Transport Safety Bill. During the Bill's passage through Parliament, we have made it clear that we would not seek to divide either House on a sensible measure that, I hope, will be a success.
	Secondly, I very much welcome the Secretary of State's commitment in principle, as announced in recent days, to a national railcard. He will know that the Rail Passengers Council is particularly interested in a railcard that would encourage more people to turn up and go on trains, and use them at the last minute rather than for pre-planned journeys. It believes that such a card should aim to encourage people who travel infrequently by train to use the railway system more frequently, andI hope that the Secretary of State and I agree about thisit should encourage more revenue for the rail system rather than cost it revenue.
	The third welcome initiative, which has been introduced partly through Government intervention and partly by other means, steps up attempts to achieve the proper collection of fares. Hon. Members on both sides of the House may have had a similar experience to me: I have travelled on the west coast main line all the way from Oxenholme to Milton Keynes before a ticket collector has appeared. A recent development at Peterborough, where a couple of ticket collectors have been put on duty, has raised about 1.5 million of extra revenue in the past nine months. That is welcome, but I hope that the Secretary of State agrees that more needs to be done.
	Fourthly, we welcome the decision by Network Rail to bring in-house some work hitherto undertaken by contractors. That is a sensible experimental measure, which will ensure that a proper comparison can be made between public and private sector provision. I also welcome the fact that Network Rail has stressed that that does not mean that it intends to bring all services in-houseit merely wishes to ensure that it is charged appropriate sums by contractors and is not being overcharged.
	Fifthly, the Secretary of State will know that the Conservatives support the difficult decision to suspend some rail services for prolonged periods to accelerate the completion of engineering work. It is a difficult decision, because some people will undoubtedly lose out as a result, but, in some circumstances, it is the only means by which engineering work can be completed in a reasonable period.
	We welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has undertaken a partial U-turn on the policy pursued by his predecessors on new road construction. I shall deliberate on that a bit later, but he should be applauded for going as far as he has.
	Finally, let me stress again that no one in the Opposition pretends for a moment that the problems with which the Secretary of State is wrestling are not long-term difficulties. They did not begin when he assumed his post in 2002, or when the Government came to office in 1997. We are dealing with problems that took many decades to build up and whose full resolution will no doubt take some considerable time.

Eric Forth: But.

Tim Collins: But none of that, unfortunately, alters the fact that in many important respects the transport system of the United Kingdom is going backwards, rather than forwards. Things are getting worse, rather than better. In recent weeks there have been announcements of cuts in train services. The Secretary of State frequently quotes the figure of only 180 out of 18,000 services, so it will be helpful to hon. Members in all parts of the House if he can confirm in his remarks that that is the entirety of the cuts in train services that he anticipates will be announced in the coming months, as part of the efforts to improve the operation of the train timetable.

Louise Ellman: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Collins: I will, if the hon. Lady will let me finish the point. I hope that she would agree that it is important that we should know whether that was a one-off reduction in train services, or whether more cuts are likely to be announced in the coming months and years.

Louise Ellman: The hon. Gentleman recognises the faults of the past. Does he accept his party's responsibility in creating Railtrack, which led to more than 200 million being paid in compensation to Virgin, because Railtrack failed to modernise the west coast main line, resulting in the fact that many services could not be run efficiently? Indeed, I believe the compensation figure may be more than 300 million.

Tim Collins: The Opposition have made it clear that there cannot be any return to Railtrack, not least because, given what the Government whom the hon. Lady supports did to Railtrack shareholders, there is no prospect of the City underwriting any further flotation. If we are speaking of value for money in terms of decisions relating to which companies run the rail track, surely she must agree that it is astonishing that Network Rail has changed the accounting practices that it inherited from Railtrack, and that, had they been applied retrospectively, at the time when Railtrack was wound up as a loss-making company by the former Secretary of State, her right hon. Friend the Member for Tyneside, North (Mr. Byers), on Network Rail's current accounting practices Railtrack was making a profit of 1.5 billion a year.
	Network Rail is spectacularly over budget and I will deal with that in greater detail in a moment. It is consuming huge sums of public money on a scale not even dreamt of by Railtrack, and as was established at Prime Minister's questions, the best the Government can tell us is that having spent all those tens of billions of pounds of public money, if we are lucky, by 2010 we might get back to the levels of train performance that Railtrack was delivering in 2000.

Louise Ellman: rose

Tim Collins: No, I will not give way to the hon. Lady again. She has had her chance, and we have seen what her interpretation of value for money is.
	I was listing some examples of the significant backward steps that have been taken in recent weeks and months in relation to our rail industry. Not only have there been reductions in train services after years when, post-privatisation, there had been a substantial increase in train services, but there was the extraordinary saga of what happened to rail freight grants. That is admirably summarised in the report prepared by the Institution of Civil Engineers, which stated in a document published yesterday:
	The announcement of the award of 5.5 m of Freight Facility Grants in December, the suspension of the scheme in January and then, in May, resumption from 2004 further illustrates the stop-go approach that currently bedevils the rail industry.
	How it is possible to plan sensibly for the future on such a basis escapes me.
	The BBC has revealed that future orders for rolling stock in the coming eight years will be just 10 per cent. of the orders for rolling stock over the past eight years. At a time when more and more trains are running late, train services are being reduced and rolling stock orders are being cut, we are told by the Secretary of State that train fares are to rise faster than inflation, rather than according to the funding formula that the Government inherited from the last Conservative Government whereby train fares would increase by less than the rate of inflation. Under the Conservatives we had more trains, newer trains and better services, paid for by fares coming down in real terms; under the Labour Government we have fewer trains, older trains and later trains, paid for by fares going up in real terms.

Graham Stringer: rose

Tim Collins: I happily give way to the hon. Gentleman, who will no doubt explain why that is a wonderful bargain for the passenger.

Graham Stringer: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that part of the reason why there are delays on the railways is the state of the rails themselves and the backlog of maintenance? While my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister acknowledged this lunchtime that there had been 30 years of under-maintenance, is the hon. Gentleman aware that in the year before privatisation, 1995, and the year after, 1996, track replacement was only at a fifth of the 1975 level? For 10 years prior to 2000, track replacement was less than half the previous rate. Is that not the reason why trains are running late now

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is too long for an intervention.

Tim Collins: The problem for the hon. Gentleman is that after three years of Labour Government, 90 per cent. of trains were running on time, and after six years only 80 per cent are running on time, but the Government are saying that the best that they can hope to do is to get back by 2010 to the levels that they inherited from the previous Conservative Government. He may believe that that is progress, but I do not think most passengers or taxpayers will. It is extraordinary that, as we established in Prime Minister's questions, punctuality levels that this Government's own Deputy Prime Minister said were a national disgrace can be reached again only after spending 58 billion and a decade, while in all the interim, things will be worse than when they were at the level that he described as such.
	Does the Secretary of State believe that that prediction, which was made by Network Rail this week, is (a) plausible and (b) acceptable? If he does not regard it as acceptable, what does he propose to do about it? Furthermore, does he have a viewhe should have one, as he has gone on record as saying that Network Rail is now in the public sectoron the issuing of bonus payments to Network Rail senior management? Does he not think that it is a little unusual that such payments will be triggered not if management get train punctuality back to the 90 per cent. that this Government inherited or the 84 per cent. that was Network Rail's target at the start of this year, but if they get it back to 82 per cent.a level that is substantially worse than that inherited both from the last Conservative Government and Railtrack? Does he have a view on that?

Angela Browning: Is my hon. Friend aware that, in the west country, the Great Western main line upgrade, which was in the SRA's 10-year plan, has been ditched and will not even start until after 2010? In some parts of the country, this is not a case of waiting until 2010 for everything to happen, as nothing will happen even in terms of starting the whole new programme?

Tim Collins: My hon. Friend is entirely right. The Government are spending more and more public money, but delivering less and less for it. Her constituents are among the many who are suffering as a result.

David Wright: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the problems in terms of investment was the shambolic process that occurred at the time of privatisation? When companies were bidding for contracts, they completely underestimated the amount of capital investment that they needed to make in the rail network.

Tim Collins: Again, the problem for the hon. Gentleman is this. If the situation was a shambles at that time, given that his Government have had six years in office, how come that on the basis of all the indicators, things are worse now? That is the question that he and his hon. Friends simply cannot answer.
	I want to be fair to the Secretary of State in one respect, as the Government have set a clear target for Network Rail that has been met: they have said that it must be not-for-profit company. I must tell him that there is no danger of its coming up with a profit at the moment. There is no danger of that target not being met. Network Rail is losing 290 million on its own figures, which is the equivalent of 2 billion a yearthe amount that would be lost if it accounted for its assets in the same way as Railtrack. I should have thought that that was not a huge achievement, as it involves losing public money hand over fist for years to come, but that was the target for Network Rail and I suppose that it has managed to keep to it.
	I dare say the Secretary of State will again cite, as he often does, the fact that, under his watch, he is investing 73 million a week in the rail system. He is certainly spending that amount, but with costs increasing, exploding levels of waste and rapid reductions in value for money, surely he should be ashamed of the fact that he is spending so much for so little return, not proud of it.

Alistair Darling: I fear that the hon. Gentleman is in the early stages of his speech. Before he gets much further, will he tell us whether a future Conservative Government would spend more or less than we are spending on the railways? If the answer is less, where would he not be spending the money?

Tim Collins: The right hon. Gentleman will know that, of course, in common with all other Oppositions, including when he was shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the run-up to the 1997 general election, we cannot be expected to make spending pledges at this stage in the Parliament. However, in the second half of his question, he asked where it would be possible to make some reductions. Let me give him an example. The Strategic Rail Authority, the creation of this Government, is about to burst out of its office building in central London. It has become so overstaffed that it is going to need a second building in central London. Shortly, the Strategic Rail Authority, which does not run a single train or own a single inch of track, will have more employees in central London than British Rail had when it ran the whole system. That is an area where we could make some reductions and deliver a better service for everybody in doing so.

Stephen O'Brien: It is fascinating that the part-time Secretary of State for Transport has a problem in respect of his other part-time job in relation to the Scottish Parliament building, let alone the rail building.
	Does my hon. Friend recognise that part of the problem is that there are now fewer trains stopping at essential stations on main line routes? That includes the west coast main line and services used by my constituents, whether the stations are situated in my constituency or immediately outside it. I suggest that that is one of the major contributory factors leading to a decline in services under this Government.

Tim Collins: My hon. Friend is right, but one of his comments slightly reassures me. The substantial cuts in services that have occurred as a result of recent decisions have included a reduction in the number of services running through Oxenholme in my constituency, so I am pleased about one thingat least he has confirmed that my constituents and I are not being singled out. People throughout the country simply do not recognise the Secretary of State's complacent statement that only 180 services out of 18,000 have been reduced. For many people using services out of many areas, the reduction is significantly more than 1 per cent.

Huw Irranca-Davies: Many of my constituents who travel back and forth from south Wales and west Wales will be very concerned to maintain the current investment and will be surprised that, on a day when the Opposition have called for a debate on this important subject, they are failing to guarantee that that investment will continue. Will the hon. Gentleman please give an answer that I can relay to my constituents?

Tim Collins: The hon. Gentleman is treading on fairly dangerous ground. Is he saying that he or his Secretary of State can give an absolute pledge as to the levels of public spending currently set out in 10-year transport plan, let alone those now requested by Network Rail? Is he prepared to give an absolute pledge and undertaking that everything that Network Rail is asking for will be provided by the current Chancellor? If he gives such a pledge, he will face serious difficulties with the Treasury and his Whips, so he should be a little bit careful in asking others to provide guarantees that he cannot offer himself.

Alistair Darling: I have been listening to the hon. Gentleman, but does he not recognise that, unless he knows how much he can spend, anything that he says about promises to the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) and other hon. Members will ring pretty hollow?

Tim Collins: I find that comment extraordinary. Even in the Secretary of State's short time in office to datebarely more than a yearhe has already had to come back on four separate occasions to revise the amount that he intends to spend in various aspects of his budget. For him to say, as I believe he just did, that the test of whether someone has a grip on transport policy is whether they can say specifically how much they want to spend when he has revised that sum four times in a year seems extraordinary even for him.
	What did the right hon. Gentleman say when he came to the House a little while ago to make an announcement about the fact that he was scrapping the fare formula that he inherited, whereby fares would fall in real terms, and replacing it with a formula that involves their rising in real terms? He said that it was unreasonable for the taxpayers' share of money spent on rail to rise above 70 per cent. and that it was unfair for passengers to pay proportionately less. He will know that the Rail Passengers Council points out that in recent years the total amount of money being paid into the system by passengers has risen, not fallen, very sharplyby many hundreds of millions of pounds. There has been an explosion in costs. It is wrong for the Secretary of State to imply that a fixed sum is being spent on rail and that we should simply allocate that between taxpayers and passengers on the basis of fairness without taking into account whether that fixed sum is appropriate.
	I want to challenge the Secretary of State on another matter; I shall be happy to give way to him on it, as he is so keen to intervene on me. This Sunday, The Observer had a front-page story saying that the Government were so dissatisfied with the present structure and operations of Network Railwhich, I remind Labour Members, was their own recent creationthat they were studying plans to break it up and replace it with regional alternatives. Was that story true or false?

Alistair Darling: indicated dissent.

Tim Collins: The Secretary of State shakes his head, but would he like to come to the Dispatch Box to put it on record? [Interruption.] He says that he will address the point when he speaks, so we shall hold him to that pledge.
	That is the situation on railincreasing chaos and increasingly poor performance as a result of the Government's policies. Let us turn to the situation on roads. As the Select Committee on Transport has pointed out, roads, which are valued at about 62 billion, are the Government's principal asset. They require not only upgrading and expansion over time, but long-term maintenance. Yet in the years since 1997, although the taxes paid by the motorist have risen from 32 billion a year to 45 billion a year, investment in our roads has not remotely kept pace. Indeed, the proportion of those taxes spent on the road system has steadily fallen since 1997. No wonder that the CBI, the British Chambers of Commerce and many other organisations that speak on behalf of British industry have been deeply critical of what the Government have done on transport overall, and on the roads in particular.

Don Foster: While the hon. Gentleman is talking about road maintenance, will he confirm to the House that in the last four years of Conservative Government spending on road maintenance fell by 8 per cent. and that, according to the national travel survey, when the Conservative Government left office road maintenance standards were the worst they had been since records began?

Tim Collins: I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman made that intervention, because he may come to regret it. In fact, the survey indicates that the quality of the local road network was at its highest in 1980 and deteriorated in the period thereafter. Who is responsible for the local road network? Local authorities. Who controlled almost every local authority in the country in 1980? The Conservative party. Who was in charge of large numbers of local authorities in the last four years of the Conservative Government? The Liberal Democrats. They were the No. 2 party in local government, as they kept telling us at the time. It was their failure: in the one instance where they had some responsibility, they underprovided. I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention; I should like a few more like it.

Andrew Murrison: Does my hon. Friend remember a now-famous quote by the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mrs. Calton), who said in Select Committee that we can all amend our opinions according to local circumstances?

Tim Collins: My hon. Friend is entirely right. Of course, that quote is transport-related, because the hon. Lady is in favour of a very large road project in her constituency, although we are always told that the Liberal Democrats are against any road projects pretty much anywhere.

Don Foster: No, we are not.

Tim Collins: The hon. Gentleman says, No, we are notthat is a very interesting comment to have on the record. I look forward to hearing him tell us that the Liberal Democrats have had a change of heart and are now in favour of some new roads.

Patsy Calton: I should be enormously grateful if the hon. Gentleman would tell us whether the Conservative party is now opposed to the south-east Manchester multi-modal study proposals.

Tim Collins: The funny thing about that is that the Conservative party is generally in favour of upgrading and expanding the road network; it follows that it is consistent for us to support roads in particular constituencies. The problem for the hon. Lady is that her party is generally opposed to new roads, yet she seeks to persuade her constituents that it would deliver a new road in her area. She has a problem; we do not.

Andrew Bennett: While the hon. Gentleman is on the subject of problems, can he tell us to what extent he expects putting up the speed limit on motorways to kill more people?

Tim Collins: I am happy to deal with that point, since the hon. Gentleman raises it. As he will know, the RAC and the AA said today that it would be sensible to have a higher speed limit on motorways because nowadays the 70 mph limit is not widely observed, even by perfectly responsible drivers, nor is it enforced by the police. [Interruption.] As my hon. Friend the Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin) points out, it is certainly not adhered to by senior members of the Government. There is everything to be said for a rational review of speed limits, with the likelihood that some speed limits in some areas should come downnotably outside schools and through small villageswhereas other limits, especially on motorways, should reflect the nature of today's cars rather than that of the cars of 35 or 40 years ago, when the limit was introduced.

Robert Key: Can my hon. Friend confirm that one of the consequences of not-joined-up government is that county councils in particular have never had so little money to spend on the upkeep of rural roads, and are increasingly utilising the infrequency of the repainting of road markings and the prevalence of potholes as ways of making people go slower, neither of which is acceptable?

Tim Collins: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, who has been a doughty fighter for common sense on such matters for many years. He highlights the severe difficulties created by the Government's scandalous rejigging of the local government grant system to pour money into their own areas at the expense of rural ones. That has had serious consequences, not least, as he rightly says, for road safety.

Rob Marris: rose

Huw Irranca-Davies: rose

Tim Collins: I have an embarrassment of riches. I shall give way once more to the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies).

Huw Irranca-Davies: I welcome the hon. Gentleman's late recognition of a successful manifesto pledge made by the Labour party during the National Assembly for Wales elections, whereby 20 mph speed zones were to be introduced in built-up residential areas and around schools. It is good to see him supporting Welsh Labour policies.

Tim Collins: The hon. Gentleman will have noted that I began my speech by saying that it is possible, however unlikely, for even the Labour party to come up with a series of sensible policies; and we, being a constructive, common-sense Opposition, will happily endorse such policies that come from anywhere. After all, today the Prime Minister, no less, adopted a policy suggested to him by the Leader of the Opposition.

Rob Marris: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Collins: I must make some progress; I have been speaking for 28 minutes and I wish to bring my remarks to a close shortly. The CBI this very day produced a report that is absolutely damning in its criticism of the Government's record on transport. It says,
	we believe the credibility of the government's approach is now at stake.
	It calls for swifter ministerial decisions. It says that the transport plan could be meaningless if it does not deliver transport benefits. It points out that only half of local transport plans are on target. It points out that Trafficmaster has produced figures showing that
	average journey times on key routes across the country have increased by 16 per cent. over the past four years.
	On rail, it says, as was quoted at Prime Minister's Question Time:
	Performance levels have . . . yet to return to the levels of the late 1990s
	a period that has significance for Members on both sides of the House.
	This Government promise a great deal on transport and spend a huge amount of money, but deliver less and less, day in, day out.

Gillian Shephard: I wonder whether my hon. Friend would like to comment on the way in which the Government take decisions on strategic matters affecting roads. Yesterday, in Cambridge, a meeting involving four appointed members of a regional bodyone from Luton, one from Bedford, one from Southend and one representing the Parish Councils Associationtook the decision that there should be no timetable for improvements to the A47, which runs nowhere near any of their areas. If the Government are taking advice from bodies such as that, what hope is there for the strategic development of a road network?

Tim Collins: As usual, my right hon. Friend makes a powerful and compelling point. The Government clearly use multi-modal studies not as a means of making decisions but as a means of avoiding them, and that needs to change.

Bob Blizzard: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Collins: I will not, because I want to ensure that others can contribute. I have given way generously to Members on both sides of the House, and I now want to set out some key elements of the fair deal for passengers, motorists and the taxpayer that the country desperately needs.
	Network Rail needs to be properly accounted for and genuinely accountable. That would not only establish a better democratic remit for its work, but maximise its chances of raising capital in the City. At present it is neither properly accounted for in the shifty document that the Government dare to call a Red Book nor sufficiently grounded in reality in terms of its accounts, for the private sector to be interested in doing financial deals with it.
	We want to slim down the Strategic Rail Authority. As we established earlier, it is over-bureaucratic and overstaffed, and is making too many interfering decisions. We would also require the rail system to live within cash limits. That principle seems to be applied to every other area of public expenditure; perhaps it should be applied to this as well. We would ensure that bonuses for Network Rail's senior management were tied to genuine improvements, not sleight of hand or simply a return to past levels.
	For the passenger, we believe that the best way of ensuring higher-quality investment in stations, car parks, trains and staff is to establish longer train operating company franchises. The short franchises that are now being introduced make it impossible for companies to plan for the future and invest accordingly. We want much more information to be given to the travelling public, far more consistently; and we will permit fare rises only when they are linked to clear, understandable and demonstrable improvements in performance. Under us, the public pay more to get more; under them, the public pay more to get less.
	For the motorist, under a Conservative Government there will never again be a year like 2001, when billions of pounds were raised in motoring taxes but not an inch of tarmac was added to the national road network. Indeed, 2001 was the first and only year in which that was true since the year when tarmac was invented. There will be a comprehensive review of speed limits to bring them in line with common sense and to maximise safety, and there will be an absolute commitment from the Conservatives to provide a Government who will be on the side of the motorist. There will be no more insults, no more hectoring and no more persecutionjust a recognition that for millions of our fellow citizens the car is a necessity, not a luxury. Whitehall policy should recognise that driving is not a sin.
	Six years of Labour Government have badly let down taxpayers, passengers and motorists alike. It is clear that the present Administration know everything about how to spend money and nothing about how to get value for it. We need a fair deal on transport, and Britain will only get it under the next Conservative Government.
	I commend the motion to the House.

Alistair Darling: I beg to move, To leave out from House to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	welcomes the Government's continuing commitment to investment of 180 billion through the Ten Year Transport Plan; applauds the decisive steps it has taken to set the country's railway system on the way to recovery following the shambles it inherited from the last Government's botched privatisation; recognises the balanced approach it has taken to maintaining and improving the trunk road network, taking account of wider environmental objectives; and notes achievements already evident in, for example, improved rolling stock for rail passengers, more reliable services for bus users, better maintenance of trunk roads for motorists and falling numbers of road accidents.
	I welcome the opportunity to discuss transport policy. It is interesting, is it not, that this is the first time the Conservatives have called a debate on transport in 13 months. One might have thought that if they were so concerned about the subject they would have called a debate before now. I suspect that they were goaded into action after the Liberal Democrats beat them to it by about 10 days.
	I am grateful to the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) for listing the six things with which he agreed. That is always useful to know. I think he will agree, however, that until he can say how much a Conservative Government would spend on transport everything else he says will lack credibility.
	The hon. Gentleman ended by talking about road policy. Many of our problems with both road and rail

Patrick McLoughlin: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Alistair Darling: I will give way to many Members, but I ask the hon. Gentleman to hold his horses for just one moment.
	As the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale acknowledged, many of our road and rail problems stem from the fact that for 30 or 40 years, unlike most other European countries, we have not experienced a consistently high level of spending. We are now establishing that level. Until the Tories can say what they would spend, their policies will lack credibility.

Rob Marris: Is it not extraordinary that in a speech lasting 33 minutesadmittedly, he was generous in giving waythe hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) did not once mention buses? What his speech did reveal was an obsession with railways. It seems that railways are important, but the Tories have no bus policy.

Alistair Darling: I hope my hon. Friend will not take it amiss when I say that I did not find that extraordinary. Given the Tories' record on buses during their 18 years in power, I think it was entirely par for the course that the hon. Gentleman had nothing to say on the subjectespecially in the light of the difficulties caused by Tory policies in the mid-1980s, which we are slowly putting right.

Patrick McLoughlin: The Secretary of State wants us to say what our spending plans will be when the next general election is called, in 2005 or 2006perhaps he will tell us which! Will he also tell us what the inflation and rail inflation levels in those two years will be, which will enable us to obtain the necessary information?

Alistair Darling: If I were the hon. Gentleman, I would be very wary about lecturing the Government on inflation. Inflation is at its lowest for 30 years, and compares rather well with the double-digit inflation that we had to endure in the 1990s.

Mark Francois: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Alistair Darling: I will in a while, but I want to make some progress first.
	Last year at the Conservative party conference, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale said:
	We will earn public respect by the quality of our ideas, the strength of our convictions, and yes, the attractiveness of our policies.
	Nearly a year later, the hon. Gentleman still has nothing to say about spending. His policies, announced yesterday in one or two newspapers, amount to support for the ability to travel on motorways at 80 mph, but only at night, and support for the removal of speed cameras.
	Evidence shows that the number of deaths and serious injuries has fallen by a third in areas where speed cameras have operated. The Tories should be cautious before embarking on a policy of removing them. Surely all Members on both sides of the House agree that the reduction in the number of deaths and serious injuries should continue, and, in particular, that we should stick to our target of halving the number of children killed or seriously injured in a 10-year period. If the law says that no one should travel faster than 30 mph in a built-up area, I should have thought that we would all support that policy. When people say that they are against speed cameras because motorists should not really be caught, I sometimes wonder whether they understand that speed can kill.
	I recognise that some may be confused about what the speed limit is at different times of the day, but I think we all know that on occasion motorists exceed the speed limits on motorways. My guess is that if the limit were raised to 80 mph, people would be encouraged to think about driving at 90 mph.
	It is, however, with spending that the hon. Gentleman seems to have substantial difficulties. I was surprised that both he and the leader of the Conservative party quoted the CBI report with such approval. I commend the report to all members. Page 2, for instance, says that there have been significant developments. It says that the Government are committed to widening the M1 and the M6. It commends the Government for setting up Network Rail. It refers to the introduction of congestion charges in London, which it supports. It mentions progress on urban transport, and comments that nine new roads have been opened since last summer and a further 10 are due to be opened this year. It also mentions that we are upgrading the A14 and are to construct a tunnel under Stonehenge, and refers to the progress we have made on the railways. It is all pretty good stuff, actually.
	The one thing that I have not yet been able to find in the CBI report is a commitment to cutting public spending on transport. Indeed, it is rather the opposite. The report's main complaint is that we should be doing more, and doing it faster. When I spoke to the director general of the CBI yesterday, he expressed the hope that we would spend more. The leader of the Tory party said in December last year that the Tory Treasury team was
	looking at a target of 20 per cent. savings across the board in Government spending.
	It will take more than reducing the head count in the SRA or anywhere else to get the sort of spending that most people would like to see in transport. Until the Conservatives tell us how much they are going to spend, their policy does not have any credibility. Perhaps when I give way to the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale, he will tell us, if the Tories are committed to a 20 per cent. cut in spending across the board, which they are because their leader has said it and their Treasury spokesman has said it, how on earth that will help transport spending.

Tim Collins: I am delighted that the Secretary of State has finally given way. I will nail yet again the total and complete fabrication that the Conservative party is committed to across-the-board 20 per cent. cuts in spending. It is not true. The hon. Gentleman would like it to be true but it is not. He should debate with the Conservative party as it is, not as he would like it to be. He quoted from page two of the CBI document but seemed suddenly to come to a halt half way down the second column on page 2. Could that be because it goes on to say,
	the multi-modal study process has continued to progress slowly and a number of significant problems have not been tackled?
	It continues:
	Even where the government has announced its recommendations, it has failed to reach conclusions on some key schemes.
	The top of page 3, which he was about to quote, then read to himself and realised that perhaps he had better not, says on rail:
	Performance levels . . . have yet to return to the levels of the late 1990s,
	and adds that the Strategic Rail Authority's strategic plan was deeply disappointing. Perhaps he should quote the whole document, not just bits of it.

Alistair Darling: If we had time, I would happily read the whole thing into the record, but if I did that the length of my speech might rival even the hon. Gentleman's. I will come on to the railways shortly, but in relation to the 20 per cent., I am sorry but I recall hearing the Conservative party leader just before the new year saying on the radio that theythe Tory Treasury teamwere
	looking at a target of 20 per cent. savings across the board in Government spending.
	I believed him. Conservative Members may choose not to. After all, the hon. Gentleman accused him when he stood for the Tory leadership of being a member of a barmy army, so perhaps he still does not have any confidence in him.
	To give Conservative Members some idea, the 20 per cent. cuts would mean cancelling the whole strategic road programme. That is the order of magnitude that they are talking about. Until they can tell us how much they will spend, their policies lack some credibility.

Bob Blizzard: Is not the key to look at what the Conservative party did when it was in government? In 1989, it brought out the famous Roads to Prosperity White Paper, yet by 1996 every scheme in East Anglia included in the White Paper had been withdrawn from the programme. Today in East Anglia, no one could go at 80 mph, even if the speed limit were raised, because we do not have many motorways and there are hardly any dualled roads.

Alistair Darling: My hon. Friend makes a good point. In 1990, the trunk road programme, which was entitled Roads to Prosperity, announced no fewer than 500 schemes. By 1997, guess what the total wasit was 150. When Conservative Members give lectures about what we should have done and should be doing, they might remember that they had 18 years to look after the transport system and those 18 years are pretty pock-marked as far as their reputation is concerned.
	The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale went on to say that not a square metre of road was built in 2001. Actually, in that year, 16 major schemes were under construction, so it is simply not true to say that no work was going on. Indeed, since the hon. Gentleman raised the subject of roads, I said earlier that one of the problems that we face is that successive Governments have not invested enough. They have not planned ahead.
	Many of our motorways are 30 to 40 years old. The M6, for example, was designed to carry 75,000 vehicles a day. On some stretches, it carries more than 150,000. That is why I announced expansion of capacity on the M1, M4, M5 and M6 last year. As I say, there are major road programmes under construction as well as a number of schemes designed to tackle bottlenecks in the system, which are now being completed.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned rail.

Jim Sheridan: Before my right hon. Friend leaves the roads, may I remind him that yesterday we met the Road Haulage Association, which is concerned about the position of the Rosyth ferry terminal being undermined by foreign drivers using our roads, driving the length and breadth of Britain using their fuel and reserve tanks? Rosyth ferry terminal provides a direct route to Europe, so there is no need to use the roads of Britain. Will he look at that issue?

Alistair Darling: That is why we are introducing the lorry road user charging scheme in 2006, with the complete support of the road haulage industry. It is unfair that hauliers from outside Britain can come and use the roads and not make a proper contribution. Everyone is agreed that the lorry road user charging scheme will be fairer. It will also be better, because as it develops it will enable differential charging to be applied, which will encourage lorries to use roads at off-peak times, rather than crowd on to them when they are very crowded.
	I am surprised that the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale did not say something about that. I suspect that, at some stage on the Floor of the House we will have to engage on the question of road pricing generally. Clearly, there is not enough time for me to do it without being guilty of what the hon. Gentleman pleaded guilty to in speaking far too long. As we look at roads and at the pressures we face for the next 20 to 30 years, we will have to look at ways to manage demand. We will have something to say about that. I am surprised that when the hon. Gentleman set out his stall he had nothing to say about it, particularly as I know that a number of Conservative Back Benchers have views on the matter, which it would be interesting to hear.

David Marshall: Following up the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire (Jim Sheridan), has my right hon. Friend given any thought to the safety problems caused by overloaded lorries coming into this country from the continent, and the concern that the European Union is about to be enlarged and that the standards of driving required in some of the entering countries may not be the same as in this country? Will he take that on board and look into it?

Alistair Darling: Clearly, that is something that we need to look at. We are anxious to get the benefits of a wider single market and to encourage the movement of people and goods, but safety on roads is of paramount importance, which is why I say I would be nervous about sanctioning wholesale increases in speed limits without thinking through the consequences.

Andrew Murrison: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Alistair Darling: I want to make some progress but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman shortly.
	I turn to the railways. I noticed that on what I take to be the Conservative party's website a press release with a picture of a charming young man beaming out at usthat is, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdaleasks, where are all the trains? Let me answer that question. Since 1997, there are 1,300 more train services running every weekday[Interruption.] That has been the increase since we have been in power. There has also been substantially more investment in the track.
	The Conservative party impliesit comes through time and again, there is hint after hintthat it does not think that the spending is worth while. The problem we have, as I say, is that we have a backlog of 30 to 40 years' worth of investment. The west coast main line is the best example of that. That was last done up in the 1960s and early 1970s. It needs now to be virtually replaced. We are spending about 9 billion to do that. It will allow more services to run, cut journey timesan hour will come off the Glasgow run when it is completed, and it will take two hours to travel between London and Manchester. It will allow four trains an hour to run to Birmingham and more freight to run, but it is expensive. There is no getting away from that. If investment is left for 30 to 40 years, it is common sense that more has to be spent than if the line had been done up over the years, as it should have been. That is one of the reasons why we are spending so much money at the moment.
	In the exchange at Prime Minister's Question Time, my right hon. Friend made the point that, after Hatfield, it became patently obvious that an awful lot more spending was required not just to make the railways safe but to make them reliable. That spending is beginning to bear fruit, in that there are now fewer temporary speed restrictions, the number of signals passed at danger has reduced and the train protection and warning system is on nearly 90 per cent. of track. That is all thanks to investment that we are putting in. So when people ask, What do you get for your 73 million?, the answer is a railway system that is being steadily improved year on year.
	I shall give another example. Is it not extraordinary that the 1930s power system for London commuter trains south of the River Thames did not begin to be replaced until last year? Railtrack never had that work on its books, and the Tories did nothing about it during their 18 years in power. We are now having to spend 1 billion to facilitate the new trains that are being introduced.
	Talking of new trains, it really is extraordinary for the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale to claim that somehow the Tories replaced lots of trains. Yes, of course there were renewals, but what we are doing is replacing 40 per cent. of rolling stock in five years, half of which will be for the London commuter system. For example, people who travel from London to Brighton can now use the new rolling stock. That is possible only because of the increased investment that we are putting in place.
	When we bear in mind the fact that the railways are now carrying more people than at any time since 1947 and that there are more train services, people will realise that money is going in and that we are seeing improvements. But of course, the system is operating under quite substantial pressure, not least because the economy is growing. It must have been much easier in the 1980s, when there were 3 million unemployed and people could not go out because they did not have the money. Because we now have very low levels of unemployment and rising prosperity, there is more pressure on the system.
	The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale also asked me about the structure. We set up Network Rail not quite a year ago, and I have made it clear that I have no intention of embarking on yet another structural reorganisation of the railways. That would simply result in people taking their eye off the ball, which cannot be in the interests of anyone. So if the hon. Gentleman wants to know about Network Rail, that is the answer.
	On regional planning, it always has been the case that, where the passenger transport executive is involved, it makes sense for the national and local systems to operate together. If we can develop that, all well and good, but Network Rail is already getting to grips with the problems that it faces. Yes, that will take time, but it is taking action and we do not intend to distract it.

Paul Truswell: Are we not still reaping some of the disadvantages of the botched Tory privatisation, and is my right hon. Friend aware that MTL, the first holder of the privatised franchise in my area, actually began by shedding 80 drivers' jobs? Does he accept that that decimated services, and that MTL's successor is still grappling with that legacy? Was that not a raw deal for rail passengers, and is not that legacy still producing a raw deal?

Alistair Darling: My hon. Friend is right, in that privatisation resulted in a whole host of decisions for which passengers paid a heavy price. Several train companies thought that they could get by with fewer drivers and then discovered two things: first, they did not have enough drivers to provide services; secondly, they made the day of their remaining drivers, who secured very large pay increases to carry on running the trains. That is a curious situation to get into.
	Returning to where we currently stand, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale implied that the Strategic Rail Authority interferes too much. It is clear to me that unless the railways are properly managed, and the SRA adopts a hands-on approach and demands better standards, we will go back to the days with which privatisation left us. For example, the SRA's decision of last week to remove the franchise from Connex South Eastern shows that it is not going to tolerate a company with 58 million of public money coming back and asking for more, and failing to put in place the financial arrangements that were supposed to have been made. The hon. Gentleman may want to return to a hands-off approach, but heand more importantly, passengerswould pay a very heavy price indeed.

Louise Ellman: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the rail regulator condemned Railtrack for, among other things, neglecting its assets and being hostile to its customers? In the light of that background, does he welcome the SRA's proactive approach, and can he give us an assurance that we will not return to the bad old days of the regime set up by the Opposition?

Alistair Darling: I get the impression that the Opposition are hankering after the days of the privatised structure, but it would be a tragedy for the rail industry if we returned to them. What happened during Railtrack's stewardship is within very recent memory. It had no knowledge of the system or of what maintenance was being carried out, and checks were not made in every case. We do not want to go back to those days. I am glad that the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale at least acknowledged that the days of Railtrack are over. It would be a tragedy if, as he seemed to be hinting, he tried to get it back in through the back door.
	I want briefly to refer to local transport. The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) mentioned the condition of local roads, and the point was well made. At least the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale had the courage to admit that between 1980 and 1997, the whole system declined. I seem to remember that the Conservatives were in power during that period, and could have done something about it. They were not above interfering in local government, and I am surprised that they did nothing here.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) mentioned buses. Since we took office, the number of passengers being so carried is increasing substantially in certain parts of the country, particularly where there is a good bus operator and a determined local authority.

Dave Watts: Does my hon. Friend agree that most of that growth has occurred in areas with bus regulation? Does he also agree that there is a growing feeling throughout the country that regulation could provide a far more effective and cost-effective bus service?

Alistair Darling: I do not agree entirely with my hon. Friend. As I have mentioned before in this House, I used to chair the transport committee in Edinburgh when we had a regulated bus service. It was, and still is, a very good bus service, but in fact the route is more extensive and imaginative now than when the local authority ran the service, because regulations prevented it, for example, from running services out of the city. So I would be wary of saying that we should go back to the pre-1986 situation.
	It is true that much of the increase in bus patronage has occurred in London, but there has also been a very substantial increase in places such as Brighton, York, Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow and Edinburgh. In each case, a determined local authority has put in bus lanes and park-and-ride to encourage the use of buses, and the bus operator has shown a bit of imagination and flair. I have always said that we probably do need to see what more we can do to improve matters, but I do not subscribe to the view that we should go back to the old days. In fact, that would do nothing more than remove one set of problems and recreate another. We need to be a little more imaginative than that.

Kelvin Hopkins: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Alistair Darling: Yes, for the final time.

Kelvin Hopkins: I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. In the light of what my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, North (Mr. Watts) has just said, is the Secretary of State not making a case for better regulation, rather than for returning to the old system? Would it not be easier for local authorities to provide an even better service if they owned and operated the public transport system themselves?

Alistair Darling: Not necessarily, but I agree with my hon. Friend that certain aspects of regulation do help. For example, one of the most irritating things is when bus timetables change regularly and without notice. If we want to encourage people to use a service, there has to be some predictability. We have been working with the industry and with local authorities to see what can be done about that.

John Barrett: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Alistair Darling: No. I want to conclude my remarks, as the Front Benchers have spoken for long enough.
	Until the Conservatives can tell us how much they would spend, everything that they say today will ring hollow. What transport needs more than anything else is sustained and adequate expenditure, which we have promised over a 10-year period. We are doubling the amount of money spent on the railways, and we have announced major improvements to the road network. We are planning for the future. But until the Conservatives tell us how much they would spend, and for as long as their leader sticks by his promise to cut spending by 20 per cent.that is what he saidfrankly, their transport policy completely lacks credibility.
	I commend the amendment to the House.

Don Foster: It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and I am grateful for the flattery from the Conservative party. The Liberal Democrats hold an Opposition day on tuition fees, and a few days later the Conservatives follow us by debating that subject; and, as the Secretary of State said, the Liberal Democrats hold an Opposition day on transport, and the Conservatives then do the same. The big difference is that, in the debate a few days ago, the Conservatives found our motion attractive enough to support it, but I have to tell the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) that I cannot reciprocate on this occasion, as we are unable to support the Conservative motion. Although it recognises the crisis in our transport system, it fails to acknowledge that many problems existed before 1997 and does not even begin to acknowledge the Conservative party's involvement in the creation of that crisis.
	Sadly, the hon. Gentleman was unwilling to acknowledge that the Conservatives were one of the parties responsible for the under-investment, which the Secretary of State rightly says has existed over many years. As I pointed out in my intervention, investment in road maintenance over the last four years of the Conservative Government declined by 8 per cent., leaving road conditions in the worst state since records began. We have already heard other hon. Members refer to the Conservative party's guilt for the botched privatisation of our railways. That led to huge fragmentation and, because of the many organisations involved, many people spend every day working out who is responsible for each and every one of the far too many delays that occur.
	The hon. Gentleman's speech seemed to imply continued support for all that was done during privatisation, but he must be aware that several of his hon. Friends are increasingly having doubts about the way in which it was conducted. For example, the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), quoted in The Times on 20 October 2000, said:
	The system was made into too many different companies.
	Yet the motion implies that the Conservatives would have preferred to continue with the lamentable and failed Railtrack. I remind the House that the Conservatives sold that body off for a sum 6 billion below its proper valuation, and that it caused huge conflicts between passenger safety and shareholder profit in a monopoly. The body did not have its own asset register.
	Some Conservatives have been willing to acknowledge that the setting up of Railtrack was incorrect. For example, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, said:
	Railtrack's licence at privatisation contained serious shortcomings because of the haste in privatising. As a result, passengers have seen poorer quality track, weak contracts between Railtrack and train operators and possibly unjustified performance bonuses to Railtrack.
	The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale is keen to criticise Network Rail in that regard, but its predecessor, Railtrack, introduced them.

Robert Syms: We have acknowledged that the system was too fragmented. The hon. Gentleman and I were involved in consideration of the Bill that became the Transport Act 2000, during which the Government had the opportunity, if they so wished, to change the structure of the rail industry. Apart from the creation of the Strategic Rail Authority, they left the system exactly as they had inherited it. It ill behoves them to criticise us now for the structure of the industry.

Don Foster: The hon. Gentleman is being a little unfair on the Government. I could point to other changes that have taken place, and the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale has just acknowledged from the Front Bench the benefits of, for example, the introduction of the rail accident investigation branch. We have also seen the establishment of the Rail Safety and Standards Board and, through the work of the Strategic Rail Authority, a significant reduction in the number of franchises has been achieved. I would like them reduced even further, but it is unfair to suggest that no significant changes have occurred since the Government came to power.
	There is no doubt that Railtrack needed to be changed. If the hon. Gentleman is so keen on Railtrack, perhaps he should listen to its former chief executive, Mr. Gerald Corbett, who, in October 2000, said:
	The Railway was ripped apart with privatisation. The structure that was put in place was a structure, let's be honest, to maximise the proceeds to the Treasury. There wasn't a structure designed to optimise safety, investment or to deal with the increase in passengers.
	The Conservatives should certainly take some of the blame for the position of the railways.
	The Conservatives also had disastrous planning policies, which led to a significant increase in the number of out-of-town shopping centres. They believed in the supremacy of the motor car, built on the famous quote of Margaret Thatcher in the 1970s, that
	nothing should be allowed to stand in the way of the great car economy.
	The entire policy of predict and provide in road building, to which we hear the Conservatives are returning, led to the huge interest in the motor car to the exclusion of all forms of public transport.
	The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) said that the Conservatives had no policy on buses, but that is hardly surprising in view of the most famous quote of all time about the buses, delivered by Margaret Thatcher when the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale was working in Conservative central office as her speech writer. This is what she said in 1986:
	A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure.
	Was the hon. Gentleman responsible for writing that?
	The Conservatives not only have no policy on the buses, but continue to be the sole supporters of the car above everything else. Again, it is not surprising to hear that they have selected as their mayoral candidate someone who is going to rip out congestion charginga move that many have accepted, if belatedly on the part of the Government, as a great successand who said:
	The healthy smell of exhausts and kebabs, that's what I love.
	If someone like that were responsible for transport in London, we should be deeply concerned.
	I was perhaps a little unfair to suggest that the Tories did not have a policy on buses. In fact, they did have onederegulation. It is worth reflecting that even before the Tory Government introduced deregulation, bus ridership fell by one third during their term of office, while fares increased in real terms by one third. Deregulation was then introduced, andoutside some notable examples of great success in London and some other major metropolitan areasbus ridership has, sadly, continued to fall.
	I agree, however, with the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale that all is not well under the current Administration, and I raised several concerns during the recent Liberal Democrat Opposition day debate on transport. The Government cannot always simply hark back to what the Conservatives did. It is worth reminding ourselves that the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Tyneside, North (Mr. Byers) said:
	There can be no more excuses. It's now our responsibility. We can't blame the Tories any more.
	We rightly have to examine what the Government have done and what responsibility they are prepared to take for it. In that regard, the House may like to know about a slipa very interesting slipmade by the Secretary of State in a speech on rail fares on 19 June. The copy of the speech that was circulated to all hon. Members included a short sentence that the Secretary of State did not deliver at the Dispatch Box. It said:
	Government's responsibility is to make sure that the system is properly managed and properly financed.
	It is odd that that sentence was left out, because it could be argued that he sought to distance himself from responsibility for some of those problems. As we have heard, cancellations on the railways have risen by 50 per cent. since the Government came to power, delays have doubled and we now have some of the slowest trains and highest fares in the world. Despite five years of the secure station initiative, only 140 out of 2,500 main line railway stations have signed up. Under the Labour Government, we have also seen for the first time in several years a decline in the amount of freight on rail. Especially worrying is the decision by the Royal Mail to remove packages and post from the railways.
	Concerns also arise on all other aspects of the public transport system. Some parts of the country have problems with buses and congestion, whichas the Confederation of British Industry report sayscosts British businesses 15 billion to 20 billion a year. However, the Secretary of State has acknowledged that the 10-year transport plan targets for reducing congestion will not be met. Indeed, the Government's motion shows a degree of optimism that is not always entirely warranted. For example, it refers to
	more reliable services for bus users.
	Only last Thursday, the Government published a survey on passenger satisfaction that showed that customer satisfaction with bus reliability in non-London metropolitan areas has fallen two points in a year, and the overall rating across England has not improved, as the motion suggests, but remained static.
	I have been critical of the Conservatives' record on roads, but the Transport Committee said last week that rural roads were in their worst shape for 25 years and that there was no chance of meeting the targets for overall road improvements by 2010. It is therefore no wonder that a recent survey showed 81 per cent. of the British public saying that the Government were failing on transport. That is why the CBI report accuses Ministers of inefficiency, indecision and an inability to deliver improvements.
	The House will welcome the indication we received of the direction of Conservative transport policies. At last, they are beginning to developor are they? We heard much about the 80 mph speed limit proposal, which achieved much publicity for the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale, but I checked the Conservative manifesto for the last general election and found that it contained that policy; so we are not, after all, hearing much new from the Conservatives. The hon. Gentleman did not mention his plan to scrap the bus lane on the M4 today. I do not know whether that is still his policy, but interestingly the Royal Automobile Club has said that he is barmy because all the research evidence shows that the bus lane has eased traffic flows on the M4.
	The hon. Gentleman is desperately keen to be the motorist's friend, and I agree that we should not be anti-car, but he goes too far. In his speech to the Tory party conference in Bournemouth last year, he said:
	Motorists are the majority. We will speak up for themand in doing so we'll be the true people's party.
	He fails to remember that only 40 per cent. of journeys are made by motoriststhey are not the majority. He also fails to recognise that the cost of motoring has steadily declined while the comparative true cost of public transport has rocketed. From 1974, the cost of travel by rail has increased by a staggering 85 per cent. and bus fares have increased by 66 per cent.
	The situation is improving. In the past three years, the cost of fuel has fallen by 16 per cent. Before, we were at the top of the league table for the cost of fuel, but now we are mid-table. Even the price of cars has continued to fall and some studies show that we are now one of the cheapest places to buy cars.

Mark Hoban: The hon. Gentleman has been speaking for some 16 minutes. Will he now say something about Liberal Democrat policy on, for instance, car prices? Would they go up under a Liberal Democrat Government?

Don Foster: I am delighted to have the opportunity to do so. Indeed, I shall conclude my remarks with some positive proposals. The Conservatives may wish to be the friends of the motorist, but surely they must acknowledge that the vast majority of motoristsand businessesdo not want continued congestion on our roads. It therefore makes sense to the motorist, as well as to everybody else, to introduce measures that seek to reduce congestion. That is why the Liberal Democrats are prepared to support congestion charging and road pricing, if it can be demonstrated that they will reduce congestion and if the money raised will be ring-fenced and used to improve the public transport alternatives significantly. That is clear Liberal Democrat policy, and we are delighted that the Governmentsomewhat belatedlywill adopt a similar approach.
	We could also make more progress by introducing soft measures to reduce congestion, such as giving greater support to companies for the introduction of green travel plans and to car share schemes and walking and cycling initiatives.

Andrew Murrison: The hon. Gentleman is pursuing his anti-car agenda and perhaps he will illustrate that with a few examples from his own constituency. We can agree on road safety, but does he agree that the multi-modal study for Bristol, Bath and the south coast has done nothing for the A36in which we share an interestand its safety record? It is about time that that was sorted out.

Don Foster: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point and I entirely agree with his comments about the disappointment with the multi-modal study. As he will be aware, another study is now taking place that might lead to improvements. I also agree with him on road safety. I welcome the recent reductions in deaths on roads, especially in the number of young children killed, but much more needs to be done. The Government were wrong, for example, not to have followed through on their 1996 commitment to reduce the drink-drive limit. That would have helped to reduce the number of deaths, and other measures would also achieve that.

John Barrett: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is also essential to have a joined-up road and rail policy for the whole of the United Kingdom and that it would have been good to hear from the Secretary of State for Transport about the discussions that he is having with the Scottish Executive and the Secretary of State for Scotland on the issue?

Don Foster: Indeed. We might have heard more about what the Secretary of State says to himself in bed about the issue, because that is where he might find time for such discussions. The Minister will be able to address those issues when he sums up.
	I believe that the whole House would agree with one other soft measure that I should like to propose, and on which I believe that more urgent action is desperately needed. In the mornings, 20 per cent. of congestion arises as a result of the school run. The latest figures demonstrate that, for the first time ever, fewer than 50 per cent. of all journeys to school are undertaken by children walking. The figures show a reduction in the numbers travelling by school bus, bicycle or other non-car modes, but there has been a huge increase in the numbers being driven to school. They now account for something like 30 per cent. of all journeys, 25 per cent. of which involve children being driven less than one mile to school.
	I genuinely believe that urgent action could and should be taken to reduce the use of cars for short journeys, not least because there has been a significant increase in the number of young people classified as obese. If all the children being driven less than one mile to school walked there instead, the savings resulting from the improvement in the nation's health would be staggering. One analysis suggests that walking less than one mile to school would cause some 3 million pounds to be shed.
	The hon. Member for St. Helens, North (Mr. Watts) was right to talk about the need to look at some new form of bus regulation. We do not want to go back to the old regulation regime, but I was delighted that the all-party transport executive of the Local Government Association voted on 25 June for some re-regulation. The Secretary of State was right to say that we cannot go back to where we were before, but we need to give local authorities more power. We also need a new framework to strengthen statutory quality partnerships, for example,

Dave Watts: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that most passenger transport authorities support some form of regulation? They believe that the way that the system operates means that the private sector is ripping off the public purse.

Don Foster: Regulation in London has demonstrated that it can lead to a significant increase in bus ridership, and there have been similar improvements in areas that have PTAs. Their ability and power to develop local arrangements mean that they can commission public transport, much as the Strategic Rail Authority commissions our railways. I should like a move towards developing the PTA style of working in all regions of the country.
	The Secretary of State was right to point to the number of areas in which there have been improvements on the railways. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale was good enough to acknowledge them. My list would be slightly different, as it would include the way that Railtrack was turned into Network Rail and the reduction in the number of franchises. However, he was right about the rail accident investigation branch and the Rail Safety and Standards Board. He was right too about the moves by Network Rail to bring some of the maintenance back in-house, and he was right to welcome the moves by the Secretary of State at least to consider the establishment of a national rail card.
	The Secretary of State is right to say continually that the industry must address the issue of costs above all. He needs to work with the RSSB, which is reviewing the regulatory regime on the railways. I believe that the railways are now over-regulated, to the point where that is one of the factors adding to the extreme costs being incurred. We can argue about the number of contractors and subcontractors being used, and the Network Rail experiment is a move to resolve that. We can also point to the fact that heavier and more frequent trains add to the damage being caused, but there is no doubt that a key issue is to find ways to ensure better value for money.
	I support the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale in his call for more to be done in respect of collecting the fares that are due. He did not say so, but studies show that between 10 and 15 per cent. of fares remain uncollected. Notwithstanding the scheme in Peterborough to which he referred, a lot more needs to be done to collect the money that is owed.
	Finally, the Secretary of State is undertaking a major revision of the 10-year transport plan. Hon. Members from all parties accepted that a long-term plan was a good idea in theory, and they supported it. Sadly, the current plan has not worked. The Government have dropped so many of the targets that there is an urgent need to develop a new plan.
	Any new plan must command everyone's total confidence, and we will need to know that the Government have confidence in it for the total planning period. Without that, we can be certaingiven the stop-go nature of funding for rail freight, for examplethat the private sector investors on whose money we depend so heavily will not have confidence in the plan.
	Moreover, the public deserve a transport plan in which they can have total confidence. I hope that we can all unite on the need for people on all sides to be willing to work with the Secretary of State to develop a revision of the existing plan in which the entire country can have total confidence for the future. In the absence of such a plan, it is not possible for us to support the Government's amendment, which is far too self-congratulatory. We shall certainly not support the Conservative motion, as it simply fails to admit and acknowledge that party's involvement in creating much of the present problem.

Bob Blizzard: I am pleased to be called to speak in this debate, as transport is the key to the future of the Lowestoft and Waveney areas that make up my constituency. Our main problem has long been unemployment in a weak local economy. Unemployment hit the heights of 14 per cent. under the previous Conservative Government, and it was at 11.7 per cent. when I was elected in 1997.
	The success of the present Government can be measured by the fact that unemployment in the area has fallen to 4.5 per cent., but it is still at least double the level found in the rest of East Anglia. It shows that, although the figures may go up or down, my area still suffers from structural unemployment. The Government have recognised that by awarding us assisted-area status, European objective 2 funding and single regeneration budget funding. None of those aids was granted by the previous Conservative Government.
	At the heart of the problem is the fact that we have lost traditional industries such as shipbuilding, fishing and food canning. A coach works that once employed thousands of people has also gone. Although other parts of the country have also lost traditional industries, we seem unable to attract new ones to take their place. In recent weeks, we have learned that unfortunately the oil and gas industry is to move from the area. Shell has announced that it is to close down its base in Lowestoft completely. That will leave a gaping hole in our local economy.
	The question to which we return again and again is why we cannot attract new firms to our area. My constituents are very hard working, and labour costs are among the lowest in the country. Land is also cheap. The problem has to do with location. Location, location, location: that is where transport comes in. Companies are reluctant to locate in the more remote and peripheral parts of the country. As I have told the House many times, Lowestoft is the most easterly point in Britain.
	The problem is rendered especially difficult by the fact that we are served by such poor transport links. I must tell Opposition Front-Bench Members that not many of my constituents are able to travel around at 80 mph, even during the night. There is hardly any dualled road in my area, and almost no motorway in the whole of East Anglia.

Rob Marris: Does my hon. Friend agree that part of the problemcertainly in my all-urban constituency, but I suspect that it applies equally to my hon. Friend's areais that some idiots want to drive around at 80 mph at night, even in areas where the limit is 30 mph? Despite that, the Opposition want to get rid of speed cameras.

Bob Blizzard: The situation to which my hon. Friend refers is the same all over the country, but it is especially dangerous in my area because many of the roads are nothing more than winding country lanes. When people go along them at ridiculous speeds, they crash; our road accident figures are frightening. The answer is not just road safety measures; we must also modernise and upgrade those roads, especially when they provide key economic links to important towns such as Lowestoft.
	The absence of good transport links only accentuates the peripherality of the area that I represent. By comparison, when industries close in what I describe as the thoroughfare of the country, other industries often move in quickly, so employment remains quite buoyant in those areas. However, that is not the case in the coastal regions.
	Obviously, we cannot alter our geographical positionnor would we want to do so, because there are many beautiful features of life on the coastbut we must improve the road links. At one time, the roads to Lowestoft were as good as those anywhere in the country, but despite the investment that has occurred, although roads in many other areas have improved over the decades, there have been no improvements in north-east East Anglia.
	Earlier, we heard from the Opposition about their new fair deal for the road user. What sort of deal has East Anglia received from the Conservatives in the past? In an intervention, I pointed out that the White Paper Roads to Prosperity, which was published in May 1989, promised that the A12, which serves my constituency, would be dualled to Lowestoft by 1999. The White Paper never really got off the drawing board and only a few schemes were prepareda couple of village bypasses and the famous third crossing of the river in Lowestoft. Once the Conservatives had won the 1992 general election, those schemes were gradually given lower and lower priority. Then a special category called longer term was invented, and they were all placed there until, in the mid-1990s, they were abandoned completely. That caused my predecessor to ask the House, at the end of a debate with his Transport Minister:
	What can I take back to my constituents, who have been deeply affected by the change in the economic base in the past decade? With their great hopes of investment in the area's infrastructure from taxpayers wiped outat least for nowwhat can I take back to my constituents?[Official Report, 17 January 1996; Vol. 269, c. 717.]
	He was able to take nothing back to his constituents from the party who were then in governmentnow the Oppositionbecause there was no fair deal from the Conservatives then, just as there would be no fair deal now, only continued neglect.

Paul Truswell: Is not my hon. Friend showing the inconsistency in the Conservative approach to motorists? The Conservatives are the motorist's falsest friend, not only for the reasons that he gave but also for their botched privatisation of buses and rail, which means, in effect, that people who want a public transport alternative have been forced into their cars, while those who choose to use their cars or are dependent on them face longer journeys, more pollution and accidents in their community.

Bob Blizzard: My hon. Friend is right. The frequently stated policy of Margaret Thatcher's Government was to force people on to the roads. They built up people's hopes with the promise of new road schemes and then dashed those hopes by never being able to deliver.
	Since 1997, this Government have acted in my area. We received 3 million for the northern spine road in Lowestoft, and in December 2000 we were awarded 25 million for the south Lowestoft relief road. I congratulate Suffolk county council on mounting that bid under the local transport plan, although three years on, its progress in developing the scheme could have been much quicker. Those schemes will make a real difference to transport in and around the main town in my constituency.
	However, better transport links between my constituency and the rest of the country are essential if my area is to have a stronger economy and lower unemployment. Those whom I categorise as anything-but-roads people put ideology before practicality; they challenge the very idea that road improvement could lead to strengthening the economy. All too often, the famous SACTRAStanding Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessmentreport is quoted at me, or rather misquoted, because such people claim that it concludes that building roads does no good. SACTRA did not say that. It noted that in an area where roads are already well developed, further development might not bring massive benefits. However, the report comes down on the positive side: investment in road upgrading has economic benefits. It also pointed out that there can be no blanket rule; each area and its circumstances must be considered. The report does not make the statements which opponents of roads claim that it makes.
	There is plenty of evidence from around the country that road improvement can bring economic benefits. Members who represent north Wales constituencies are pleased that the A55 was upgraded. A study from the Cardiff business school showed that there were economic benefits. A similar study of roads around Merthyr in south Wales came up with the same results. A study of the A40 to west Wales concluded that benefits would accrue if there were road improvements. I did some of my teacher training in Hull and can remember what a downtrodden place it was in those days. When I returned several decades later, its road links had been dramatically improved and the town was thriving. Although there cannot be universal certainty that investing in road upgrades will bring economic benefits, there is evidence that, in many circumstances, it can.
	Who says that investment in upgrading the roads to Lowestoft would make a difference? Neither employers trying to run their business from a difficult position with poor links, nor the trade unions are in any doubt as to whether it would make a difference. Management and unions are at one on that issue.
	Our area has one of the lowest business start-up rates in the country. Those figures tell a story. Why are people more reluctant to risk starting a business there? It is because they realise that they will be at a disadvantage because of the poor transport links. At Westminster, when I talk to national business leaders, I ask them whether they would consider locating in my area. The answer is that they might be interested if we had better transport links. Whenever Ministers visit my area, they are late; it always takes them longer than they expect to get there. Their first comment is that the roads or the railways are not too good.
	In asking for better links and more investment, one needs to establish which route should have priority. I conducted an extensive survey of employers in my constituency: I asked 300 for their views and 200 replied. Overwhelmingly, they pointed to the need to improve the A12. So towards the end of the year, with the co-operation and support of the local newspaper, the Lowestoft Journal, I launched our upgrade the A12 campaign. I pay tribute to the editor of that newspaper, Russell Cook, for his persistence with the campaignweek after week, we are going on with it in the local paper.
	The campaign's aim is simply to get a faster, more reliable journey time up the A12 to Lowestoft, and there has been a fantastic and overwhelming public response in support of the campaign. We have had support from all sectors, not just business. Those in the health sector tell me that it is often difficult to recruit the people whom we need in the heath service because we are perceived as being a little remote and off the beaten track. We have had support from those in the education sector, who tell me that the aspirations of youngsters in schools are often less than they should be because people's horizons are limited. Upgrading the road is supported not just by people in the town of Lowestoft, but by those in villages on the route, who obviously want bypasses. That support is still growing, but our campaign has come across a major obstacle: Suffolk county council.
	Suffolk county council's idea is not to upgrade the A12 to produce a faster, more reliable journey time, but, through its so-called route management strategy, to slow traffic down furtherwith more traffic lights, more speed limits, more bollardsin the hope that that will make the road safer. I fear that it will just make road users more frustrated because in this century they expect a better quality road than we have now. I suspect that an anything-but-roads mentality lies at the heart of the county council's approach.
	The A12 was detrunked about three years ago. Of course, detrunking does not preclude highway authorities from including road improvements in their local transport plans and sending them to the Government. Unfortunately, Suffolk county council's view is that Lowestoft's main link to the rest of country should involve going north, through Great Yarmouth, on to the A47. I am concerned that that idea seems to have taken root regionally, and I want to ensure today that my hon. Friend the Minister does not take up the idea nationally, because it is nonsense.
	The idea that, if people in my town want to go south to London, they should start by going north to Great Yarmouth is crazy indeed, especially for people who live in the south of town, as they would have to cross the river on the only bridge, which lifts up about 10 times a day. The idea that people would go through all that to travel south beggars belief. I have measured the distance involved, and going to London via that so-called strategic, preferred route is 16 per cent. further, resulting in 16 per cent. more emissions. The survey that I carried out with local businesses showed that the A47 route was least favoured; it was of least use to those who form part of the local economy of my area.
	As I have said, the SACTRA report indicated that local studies were needed to see whether improving the roads would bring the hoped-for economic benefits. A number of studies have been undertaken in the past few months in our area. Suffolk Development Agency commissioned consultants, Ecotec, to take a look at the A12 between Ipswich and Lowestoft. It estimated that the county council's route management strategythe speed limit and bollard approachwould cost us 600 jobs, and it found that there would be a positive correlation between upgrading the road and creating more jobs.
	Suffolk business link commissioned some consultants called Transitions to look into why we have a low level of business start-up. One of the findings was that transport improvements are essential to connect such businesses with national and international markets. A sub-regional study was carried out by consultants SQW, and its finding was unequivocal:
	The A12 southwards from Lowestoft to Ipswich, Felixstowe and London should provide another strategic link into the subregion even though it has been de-trunked between Lowestoft and Ispwich.
	Clearly, the A12 is enormously important to our area.
	Including improvements in the Suffolk local transport plan must be the way forward. Our campaign will force a rethink by Suffolk county council, because its so-called sustainable approach to road transport is unsustainable for my constituency. Local people know it, and they will find ways to demonstrate that. In preparation for the time when the local transport plan is submitted to Ministers for decision, I suggest that a new dimension to Government policy, particularly transport policy, is needed in relation to the towns around our coasts such as the one that I represent, and the more peripheral parts of our country.
	We need to ensure that all those places are properly connected to the modern infrastructure. That will be more important than any development grant, or any other schemes that may come and go. That idea was a key theme in yesterday's seminar about seaside towns that took place in, and was led by, the Treasury. Nearly everyone who represented a seaside town came up with the same point: our towns would be helped most by better transport links. I hope that the Government will take the ideas from that seminar and work them up into a policy, under the revision of the 10-year plan, because we want to connect those parts of the country that risk being left out to the main infrastructure.
	In April, during the week when we heard the bad news from Shell, I asked the Prime Minister to
	look at what can be done to help towns such as Lowestoft where there are many good, hard-working people but, because of the town's peripheral location, it is hard to attract new businesses when we lose the industries that have been there so long.[Official Report, 2 April 2003; Vol. 402, c. 909.]
	I hope that the Prime Minister takes that to heart and that the Government come up with an answer.
	I have been saying that Lowestoft has three possible futures. I am sure that that could be said of other towns around the country. It could be a retirement town, a dormitory or a thriving, working town. Only one of those gives a future for young people: it has to be a thriving, working town.
	Therefore, we need a new policy. We talk about inclusion, so let us adopt an inclusive approach to transport, and not leave places outside the main network. If the Government can make that a priority, we will truly have a fair deal for all parts of the country.

Robert Syms: I should like to declare my interests in road haulage and transport, as shown in the Register of Members' Interests.
	I welcome the debate because transport is important to all Members and constituents. As we heard from the hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard), transport has a major impact on the prosperity and general well-being of towns. I grew up in Chippenham, which originally grew on the railway line west out of Londonthe Great Western Railway line. I can remember the M4 being built, and people did not quite know what impact it would have. However, if people go to that town todayor Swindon, or anywhere else on the M4they see a vibrant, much-changed community, and jobs, homes and services have been built on the back of that infrastructure.
	I can perfectly understand the hon. Gentleman's comments. It is vital that people consider how easy it is to get in and out of communities. Its takes years to build roads and infrastructure in this country, so if there is nothing on the stocks, people find it tremendously frustrating to try to sell the benefits of their community or town. We all know that those very important decisions can have a great impact on the way in which wealth is divided across our nation.
	The debate is also interesting because the problems are long term, and it is probably true to say that all Governments have under-invested in transport. I have occasionally wished that we were rather more French in our single-mindedness towards large schemes, so that we got on with things.

Kelvin Hopkins: I am interested in the hon. Gentleman's suggestion that we ought to be more French. Would he suggest that we bring our railways back into public ownership in a state-owned integrated system, as the French have done, which works extremely well?

Robert Syms: Many aspects of the French railway system work very well, but from my experience of travelling on it I would not agree with the hon. Gentleman's suggestion. I was thinking more of the general attitude of people in France, which is a can-do, Let's go and build something attitude. Sometimes, the French do not consult people as much as we do, but I have always been struck by the fact that they see transport very much as part of regional policy, especially in northern France, in which unemployment is higher and where communities vie to have railways lines and roads built through them for their benefit. That is a little different from the attitude in our dear nation, which is a country of owner-occupiers who tend to judge every project on the basis of whether the value of their home will go up or down. I acknowledge that it would cost money, but if we offered more generous compensation we might find it easier to build such infrastructure projects.
	We are six years into this Government, and inevitably there will be some reflection on their record. It is true that at the end of the last Conservative Government there was a reduction in the road programmewhich I opposedand the number of schemes was reduced to 150. Within a year of this Government coming to power, however, the Deputy Prime Minister made further reductions. A number of multi-modal studies followed, which, whatever their benefits, tended to put off public investment rather than speed it up, which is one reason for the lag in investment. I am pleased that the Government have started to realise that that was a mistake and that they must make provision for roads; they are now starting to put right some of the mistakes that they made in their first few years. There is no doubt, however, that because of the lags in investment they will take a while to catch up. The criticism made by my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins)that last year was not a great year for new road schemeswas perfectly right.
	Other than taxing them, the Government have ignored motorists, from whom they have taken 9 billion or 10 billion in vehicle excise duty and VAT. It is sometimes presumed that motorists are rich and that those who use public transport are poor. I suspect, however, that those who commute to their jobs in the City may be better paid than many in rural communities, where a car is a necessity and where it may be difficult to afford a car.
	Interestingly, the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster), who is no longer in his place, talked about cheap fuel and cheap cars, the implication being that that was rather a bad thing. For many of our citizens, it is rather a good thing because it allows them to take their children to school, to go to the supermarket and to enjoy a reasonable standard of living. As democratic politicians, we should rejoice in that. It is no bad thing that people should enjoy the fruits of a prosperous economy.
	We have also heard responses to the Deputy Prime Minister's comments about and commitment to reducing traffic on the roads. As the current Secretary of State for Transport has made plain in a number of comments since, fuller levels of employment and a fairly robust economy will inevitably mean that more people will travel on the roads. That proves how stupid it was for the Deputy Prime Minister to think that we could artificially stop people using cars when they need them for their everyday work and everyday lives. We need to put far more effort into provision for motorists and roads, because that is how the vast majority of people in this country travel. It is the method of choice, and we can understand perfectly why people prefer to use their cars when public transport costs are spiralling. More imaginative ways exist, however, of managing the current system.
	Some comment has been made about the announcement that my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale made about speed. I see nothing wrong with variable speed limits. I know that some who work for motoring organisations are concerned that people will be confused, but we have variable speed limits on the M25 that go up and down with traffic flow, and I see no reason why our whole motorway network should not have variable speed limits. Why have one speed limit, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, whatever the traffic and weather conditions? That seems nonsense. It seems to me that there is nothing wrong with driving at 80 mph down a motorway at night when there is virtually no traffic and conditions are good.

Andrew Bennett: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that if we increase the limit to 80 mph many people will feel that they can exceed it by a further 10 mph? If a fox or something else crosses even an empty road it is very easy to have an accident at such speed. The danger with variable speed limits is that accidents will increase dramatically.

Robert Syms: I do not see that there is a great problem with such speed limits. The general safety record on motorways is very good. We have a fairly good record for pedestrian accidents. Far too many children are killed in road accidents, but most of them occur at lower speeds where cars are parked on the road near estates and schools. A perfectly respectable argument exists for having a lower speed limit, and much higher levels of enforcement, in areas where young people leave school, jump on their bikes and try to get home. That is where they are at risk. We heard evidence at a meeting with the RAC that there are certain ages at which children are particularly at risk; usually, it is when young boys in their early teens get on their bike, rush home from school and perhaps do not pay attention to the highway code. We should target those children to reduce accidents. I welcome the Government's commitment to halve the number of deaths of children on the roads.
	With traffic on only one side of a motorway and with modern cars, modern brakes and good conditions I do not see any problem with people travelling faster. Conversely, when there is a lot of traffic on a motorway network, and when weather conditions are not good, we ought to be able to reduce speed limits. In addition, on the M25, at times of the day when there is a high volume of traffic, bringing down the speed limit means that people get home quicker, because people do not have to brake as often. Management of speed limits on the networknot being afraid to put them up as well as downis one way of addressing the problem.

Andrew Bennett: I agree about reducing speeds around schools, but I understand that the Conservative party wants to get rid of speed cameras. How will he reduce speed in urban areas without more checking and enforcement of limits?

Robert Syms: I am not the greatest reader of party publicationsI say that as a vice-chairman of the Conservative partybut, as I understand it, speed cameras should be placed at accident blackspots. The objective of a speed camera is to save lives and deter motorists from speeding and thereby killing people. Cameras should not be used on safe stretches of road as a means of raising revenue. When I drive around the country I sometimes see speed cameras in areas where I think they are being used as revenue-raisers rather than what they should be used forsaving lives on the road. That must be the focus of what we are doing. Therefore, as a nation, in terms of road safety, we must be single-minded in concentrating on more vulnerable groups such as children.
	In addition, we must not just concentrate on the motorist but educate pedestrians. I am amazed by the number of times that pedestrians walk off the pavement without looking, often when they are talking on a mobile phone or listening to a Walkman. When I see cyclists going through red lights in London and not obeying the highway code, I wonder why so many are not knocked over. There is a role, therefore, for better public education in these areas. Variable speed limits are a tool that can be used to improve the road network.

Greg Knight: Does my hon. Friend agree that the facts do not support the assertion made in an intervention by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Bennett)? In France, for example, motorway speed limits are 80 mph, and there is no evidence of more accidents occurring there. In Germany, I believe there is no upper limit on the major motorways.

Robert Syms: That is true, but this country has a tradition of having speed limits. We should reconsider the whole issue of speed limits and perhaps consider variable speed limits.
	Thinking on traffic lights is fixed. They often operate for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and one can often sit at a traffic light at 2 am while driving to one's constituency through Twickenham. We have a mania for putting traffic lights on roundabouts, which are supposed to keep traffic flowing. It might be appropriate for traffic lights to operate briefly at certain times of the rush hour if there is a need to allow people on to a roundabout, but I cannot understand why such traffic lights operate 24 hours a day and seven days a week, because that disrupts traffic.
	The route from the motorway network to central London is one of the most congested because of all the traffic lights through which one must pass. Traffic lights should be audited to determine their impact on the system. The timing of traffic lights in London was changed before the Mayor introduced congestion charging, and such a measure can have a real impact on the speed of traffic.

Greg Knight: My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech and some powerful points, especially about the unnecessary waste of human time and increased pollution that are caused by vehicles being forced to stop at a red traffic light when no vehicles are coming in the other direction. That happens because the lights are on a timer. Does he agree that some states in America have the right idea, because during non-rush hour periods traffic lights flash amber in every direction, which means that motorists may cross them? The lights give a warning to take care.

Robert Syms: I am not sure whether I would like to try that, but my right hon. Friend makes a good point. I know that motorists in America can sometimes turn left on a red light if the way is clear.
	My essential point is that we must consider the management of our road network and roads much better. We should have a system to examine routes from A to Z and audit the number of traffic lights and roundabouts, the design of the road and speed levels all along the route to determine whether traffic could be allowed to move faster without the requirement for massive investment in more concrete and tarmac. That might require a review of bus lanes, because although they increase the speed of buses they knock back other traffic. We should look at everything and make an assessment of specific routes. On narrow sections of road, especially, there are occasions when a few cars parked on the side can knock traffic back, so we need more active management. I am not sure what the system should be, but I hope that Members on our Front Bench and the Government will consider it.

Tom Brake: How would the hon. Gentleman's review reconcile faster flows of traffic with the need for pedestrians to cross the road?

Robert Syms: Stakeholders, to use that terrible word, must be considered. There are always competing interestspedestrians, cyclists, buses and carsand a judgment must be made. We sometimes do things in an itty-bitty way. One may drive into London through three or four boroughs with different policies, and a more comprehensive view might result in better policies.
	The Government have neglected the motorist for too long. I am glad that they are having a deathbed repentance and that they are taking the issue more seriously. I caution against hitting the motorist with higher taxes, not least because it is a rather regressive way of dealing with people. Anybody from the west country knows that many people who live there are on marginal incomes but need vehicles to support their employment and look after their families. The importance of motoring has been underestimated in recent years and it must be a central issue. We can do many things without building vast motorway networks and we need creative thinking. As I said, 24-hour and seven-day thinking on speed limits and traffic lights makes the situation worse. If we were a little more creative, we might improve the lot of our fellow motorists and passengers.

Kelvin Hopkins: The Conservatives are rather shooting themselves in the foot by initiating a debate on transport because most of our problems derive from the policies that they pursued when they were in office. I make no apology for reminding them about rail privatisation and bus privatisation and deregulation because the effect of those measures is to an extent still with us. I would go further than my colleagues on the Front Bench by reversing those policies, and I think that we shall do that one day.
	I shall certainly support the Government's amendment and oppose the Tories' motion, but I think that I would delete the word botched from the amendment. There is constant reference to the privatisation being botched, which implies that the privatisation of such an industry as rail could be a good thing. That is not the case, and we would make more progress if we deleted the word botched from the Government's lexicon for the foreseeable future.

John Horam: If the privatisation policies were so bad, why have the Government not reversed them?

Kelvin Hopkins: I imagine that the Government have other priorities, although I am doing my best to persuade them to do such a thing. Indeed, I urge hon. Members of all parties to sign the early-day motion that I tabled this week calling for railways to be brought back into public ownership. The railway systems that work best are integrated state systems that are backed fully by government, such as those in France and elsewhere. As a member of the all-party rail group, and the former all-party rail freight group, I have made many visits abroad to see good railway systems in operation.
	Tragically, our railways have received poor investment for many decades but the cost of replacing a mile of railway track has increased by four times since privatisation. That is a direct result of privatisation and the contracting rip-offs that continue to this day. The Government are gradually inching their way back toward common sense and I urge them to go further in that direction. The Strategic Rail Authority's decision this week not to give Connex back its franchise is another step in the right direction, and I look forward to the SRA garnering further franchises as a basis for pubic ownership and future reintegration.
	In a sense, the privatisation was botched because it split track operations from train operations. I think that everyone realises that that was a big mistake. The idea was that there could be a degree of competition among train operators on the infrastructure provided, but there is plenty of evidence showing that that does not work. Clearly, we cannot have a situation in which trains race each other on parallel railway lines. Buses can race each other on the road, at least, but that is not possible on railways because there is one track and one train. It would be much better for the rail system to be planned and operated in the public interest with appropriate subsidies if necessary.

Andrew Bennett: Surely my hon. Friend is aware of the racing that used to take place between Scotland and London to determine whether the east coast or west coast service was the fastest.

Kelvin Hopkins: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding me of that. My great-great-great-grandfather used to drive the Flying Scotsman. Sadly, he died in a railway accidenthe was probably going too fast.
	In general terms, with that notable exception, trains do not race or compete against each other on the same track. The service should be planned and run in the public interest and subsidised if appropriate. Everything that is done should be made accountable to the House and, through us, to the public. We had that system before but the problem with the days of British Rail was that we did not invest sufficiently, so our railways lagged behind those on the continent of Europe for a long time. We are starting to address that problem but we must go further.
	There has been emphasis on roads, but they are often congested.
	There are two reasons for that. The first is that there is too much traffic. The second is that roads, especially motorways, are constantly being repaired because of the damage caused not by cars but by heavy freight.
	I am a great supporter of freight transport by both road and rail. However, the mathematical formulathe fourth power law of road damageshows that damage to roads increases by the fourth power of the axle weight. So if one doubles axle weight, one multiplies road damage by 16 times, and so on. That is a problem. If we get significant amounts of freight off the roads and on to rail, we will make a difference not just to the environment but to road congestion and the massive expenditure that comes out of the Treasury' pocketthe public purseto pay for repairs. There will also be a smoother flow of traffic in general. Freight would be more reliable, especially from more remote industrial areas to the channel tunnel, if we invested more in rail freight facilities.
	I have long been a supporter of the Central Railway scheme to provide a direct dedicated freight link from the industrial north to the continent of Europe. A reliable roll-on-and-go service, operating every quarter of an hour, with full-scale trailers on trains, would be tremendously popular with road hauliers and the people who suffer from the problems caused by traffic. It would be a boon to Britain and could breathe new life into the economies of the north midlands and Scotland, and I am paying particular attention to the interests of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who represents a Scottish constituency. That scheme would make a difference to our economy.
	We are peripheral to Europe. Unlike Germany and France, we are not in the golden triangle. We have to ensure that our transport freight links to the continent are effective. The channel tunnel is underused, and there is scope for it to carry more freight. That would transform the economics of channel tunnel operations. The passenger forecasts for the channel tunnel have been proven to be overblown. There is scope for more freight to go through the tunnel. A direct link between industrial areas of Britain to the tunnel, which would accommodate full-scale trailers on trains, would benefit everyone. There is a scheme to that effect and I hope that my hon. Friends back it. At the very least, I hope that they support the principles behind it.
	I have always been concerned about road safety. I used to wear a seat belt before they were compulsory, much to the annoyance of some of my friends. They used to think that I did not trust their driving, but my response was, I trust your driving. It's the person who's going to crash into us that I don't trust. They thought that was a smart answer. I used to wear a crash helmet when I rode my motorbike. I have always tried to be sensible about drinking and driving, even before the law was tightened. Those are sensible things to do, but not everyone is sensible. Unfortunately, we have to encourage people to be sensible by applying a law from time to time.
	If we relax the laws on driving, a minority of drivers will be irresponsible and drive too fast, which will ruin our reputation as a nation of safe drivers, with a low accident rate. I hope that my hon. Friends will not listen to the siren voices that call for a relaxation of our sensibly strict controls on driving and safety.

Mark Hoban: Transport is a key issue in my constituency and other parts of south-east Hampshire. Economic and housing developments put a great strain on existing infrastructure, leading to traffic jams and tailbacks in the area. Unfortunately, rather than problems being solved before they arise, there has been a pattern of solutions following the chaos that such development has caused.
	We are at a defining moment. Traffic studies suggest that the chaos in south-east Hampshire will get worse if no action is taken. The Government need to take action if we are to shield our roads and economy from gridlock. It is well recognised that there are problems in the area. That has been confirmed by not one but two studies into integrated transport. The first study was on the M27 corridor, which runs from Southampton to Portsmouth. That was followed by the south Hampshire element of the south coast multi-modal study. There was little difference between the recommendations of those studies other than the decision in the multi-modal study to investigate the possibility of congestion charging, which I shall deal with in a moment.
	Local people share the impression that my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) identified: that multi-modal studies are often a delay rather than a spur to action. The current problems are clear, as the study indicated. The M27 is at capacity between junctions 9 and 12, and three of those junctions are in my constituency. Motorway intersections are congested. Heavy development in the Gosport peninsula has led to traffic build-up along the A32 almost from its start in Gosport through to junction 11 of the M27, with motorists experiencing long delays at almost every point on that road where there is a roundabout or traffic lights during both busy periods and the lull between the morning and evening rush hours.
	The studies have identified that population, work force and employment will rise in south Hampshire between 1998, when the forecast started, and 2016. For example, it is estimated that between 1998 and 2016 the number of residents in the borough of Fareham will increase by 8 per cent., employment by 26 per cent. and the work force by 8 per cent. The increase in employment outstrips that of population and work force in both relative and absolute terms, so more people will travel into Fareham to work than perhaps live there at the moment.
	Over the same period, it is predicted that in south Hampshire the number of car trips will increase by 25 per cent., vehicle kilometres travelled will increase by 26 per cent. and, interestingly, vehicle hours will increase by 61 per cent. The astute will notice that the increase in hours outstrips the increase in kilometres travelled. That is because vehicle speeds on the M27 are predicted to fall by 15 per cent. over the forecast period. On the M27 itself, journeys between junctions 9 and 10 will increase by 30 per cent. in the survey period and by 28 per cent. between junctions 10 and 11. Those three junctions fall within my constituency. That is a bleak picture for local people who are already frustrated by sitting in traffic on the M27 or the A32.
	The traffic growth figures, which show a significant increase in delays and time spent on motorways, assume that a major public transport initiative will have taken place. The south Hampshire rapid transit system is to link Fareham to Portsmouth through Gosport. It is meant to relieve some of the existing and growing traffic problems on the Gosport peninsula and promote access to employment for those people who live along the route.
	However, the Minister will know that the scheme is in doubt. There has been a significant increase in costabout 100 millionowing to factors beyond the control of Hampshire county council and Portsmouth city council, the local government sponsors of the scheme. They and the Government need to reach an agreement on how the overrun is to be met. Hampshire county council has said that it will meet its share of some 17 million. Portsmouth city council, led by the Liberals who, as we heard, are interested in non-car alternatives to traffic problems, is equivocating. The Government are reviewing their options.
	If the scheme does not go ahead, there will be more traffic on the roads, which will lead to slower journey times and greater congestion at junctions and on roads in general. But what are the alternatives? Traffic chaos can continue, and increase; we can consider tweaking existing public transport initiatives; we can put an end to housing development in the area; or we can simply build more roads.
	If we are to improve the area's economic and environmental well-being, we cannot allow traffic chaos to continue to grow. Despite the work of Hampshire county council and FirstBus to improve bus links, particularly in the Fareham-Gosport corridor, I do not believe that public transport can play a major role in reducing congestion in the area if the south Hampshire rapid transit scheme does not go ahead. Based on current form, the Government will not allow Fareham and Gosport borough councils to stop building houses, so the pressure on the transport network will continue to increase. The fourth option, a new road-building programme, would involve a protracted planning process, and it would take years to resolve today's traffic problems let alone those of tomorrow.
	The south coast multi-modal study described the rapid transit scheme as a do minimum scheme and advocated its extension to Southampton. The cancellation of that scheme would not only cause traffic chaos greatly to increase, but strike a blow at the economic development of south Hampshire, which has been designated a priority area for economic regeneration to tackle the deprivation along the coast.
	The consequences of the Government's withdrawing their support for the scheme would be complex and include implications for economic development and housing development, a need for alternative schemes to relieve congestion and an environmental impact. That decision cannot be made lightly. However, motorists in south-east Hampshire want certainty about the future of the scheme. They would welcome a quick decision so that the county council, Portsmouth city council and the Government can consider alternative schemes to reduce traffic congestion.
	As currently set out, the scheme will affect only the centre of my constituency. In the west there are traffic problems arising from housing development, particularly on brownfield sites, which is causing roads in residential areas to become more and more congested. In Whiteley, a major development in the north of my constituency which is shared by Fareham and Winchester councils, there is only one road in and out for residents and those who work in the area, and thousands of people use that road every day. There is a plan to build another road so that Whiteley can be accessed from other directions, but uncertainty caused by the rules on compulsory purchase and the method of valuing the land means that the road cannot yet be built. The county council is investing more money to improve bus routes, but people's work and lifestyle patterns militate against the use of public transport, so it is difficult to see how it can be the sole means of meeting the transport needs of the many people who live and work in Whiteley. We cannot continue to accommodate additional housing development without proper transport infrastructure.
	Motorists in Fareham do not feel that they have a fair deal. There is too much traffic on our roads, and that problem will be exacerbated if the rapid transport system is not built. There will be more cars on the already overcrowded M27, with slower speeds, longer hold-ups and more pollution.
	The multi-modal study suggested the use of tolls to reduce traffic in Portsmouth and Southampton. It is difficult for local people to see how that would work within the existing public transport infrastructure. There are few sensible alternative means for those who live outside Portsmouth and Southampton to get into the cities to work. Local business groups are concerned that a congestion charge would have an impact on trade and increase their costs. If we are to introduce road-pricing or congestion-charging schemes in urban areas smaller than London, we need to give a great deal of thought to how they would work.

Greg Knight: Is not my hon. Friend saying, in essence, that there is only one effective solution to the problem of congestion, and that is to build more roads that are appropriate to the development in the area?

Mark Hoban: My right hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. The hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) referred to the need to improve transport infrastructure to help the economy in his constituency. Fareham and south-east Hampshire face another problem: many parts of the sub-region are economically successful but that has transport consequences that we need to tackle. The situation is exacerbated by the Government's direction that more houses be built in those areas. We cannot have more development without more infrastructure to meet people's needs. In many cases, roads, rather than fiddly, peripheral measures such as green bus routes, are the answer. The existing congestion problems in south-east Hampshire require more significant changes.
	The public transport infrastructure in the area recently suffered a significant blow, with the decision of South Central to remove 30 trains a day from the Southampton to Bournemouth segment of the route from London to the south coast. Those trains stop in my constituency, and people in Fareham who want to travel to the New Forest, Christchurch or Bournemouth will now have to change trains in Southampton. If they have luggage or young children, or are elderly, they will be more reluctant to let the train take the strain, as the great advertising slogan of, I think, the '80s said. They will be looking to use their car to travel on the M57 to the New Forest.
	The reduction in the train service on that key part of the route will make journey times uncertain and, because of the resulting inconvenience, persuade people not to use the train. In addition, many people in my constituency commute to London from Southampton Airport Parkway station, and of course they will be hit by the above-inflation increase in rail fares. It is not only motorists in Fareham who do not have a fair deal; the problem affects rail passengers too.
	The south-east is the locomotive of the British economy. Economic, population and employment growth in the region is predicted to be faster than in the UK as a whole. As I said in response to the intervention from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight), that level of economic development brings its own problems. In south-east Hampshire that has shown itself in gridlock and slower speeds on the motorways, longer tailbacks and congested roads in residential areas. The Government cannot ignore those problems if they expect the south-east to continue to provide its 15 per cent. share of the nation's wealth. We need a fair deal for all those who have a stake in our transport systemmotorists, rail passengers and, above all, taxpayers.

Rob Marris: We should not overlook the amount that has been done on the railways. This has been a thoughtful debate, but sometimes people overlook what has already been achieved while concentrating, understandably, on the problems. By 2005, the Government will be spending double what they spent in 20014.3 billion as opposed to 2.1 billion. That is extremely important. Overall rail investment during the 10-year plan will be well over twice the amount that was spent in the 10 years up to 1997. We could bandy about similar figures for the amount of track being laid, and so on.
	As a west midlands Member of Parliament, I am delighted that the west coast main line is being upgraded, but I have problems with some of the operators, particularly Virgin Trains, which may be well known to hon. Members. It is somewhat sad that although the Conservatives called for today's debate, only five of their Members are present in the Chamber. However, I appreciate that more of them were in the Chamber earlier.
	I have ongoing problems with Virgin Trains, which has artificially reduced the number of complaints it receivesthe reduction is taken into account in its franchise renewaland does not stick to maintenance schedules for its rolling stock. I took that up with Chris Green, the chief executive, last September, and suggested that Virgin Trains should run longer but less frequent trains to achieve greater reliability, but he pooh-poohed the idea. Three months later, Virgin announced a policy to make such a change. I take no credit for that, but the company strikes me as one that is not well run. In public transport, whether railways, buses, aeroplanes or maritime transport, we need reliability. For most customers, reliability is more important than frequency. Having worked as a professional driver for several yearsI am a former bus and truck driverI know that when making a delivery or operating a public service vehicle it is frustrating to fall behind schedule because of congestion. That is one of the main things that puts passengers off.
	Rail freight is a big success story that is often not talked about. There has been a 24 per cent. increase in the amount of freight moved by rail since 1997. I am sad that the freight subsidy has been cut this year, and perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister can explain why in his reply, as that seems a strange decision. We need to look at the successes of buses in many of our towns and cities, and try to replicate the successes of a number of local initiatives and visions. Travel West Midlands is, as its name suggests, the major bus service provider in the west midlands. It is not perfect, but it does a very good job overall, and there are similar success stories in, for example, Leeds, as we have heard.
	The success of trams or so-called light rail is not much heralded. Trams are expensive to build, but are well used. In the west midlands, surveys show that 15 per cent. of people using trams have a car which they would otherwise use, so the trams are taking cars off the road. Eighty-five per cent. of the west midlands tram network between my constituency and Birmingham is on dedicated track, so it does not create congestion on the roads, with the exception of the final two miles into my constituency. It is obviouswe need to state the obvious in public transportbut one reason why people take trams is because they know where they go. By contrast, as a bus user, I know that the majority of bus stops do not say where buses go, let alone display a timetable. How we are to encourage people out of cars on to buses when they do not know where they go is beyond me. As I said before, for people using public transport, whether bus or rail, reliability is generally more important that frequency.
	As for the roads on which the buses run, I welcome the Government's decision to spend large amounts of money, for example, to get rid of 192 bottlenecks, and other creative schemes. We should be cautious for environmental reasons about major road schemes; otherwise we could risk degrading our environment even further. I welcome the Government's actions on enforcing PPG6 on out-of-town developments. Not only do we have to cope with current traffic levels but we must try to manage and reduce those levels. Patterns of urban development, as well as the rural and semi-rural developments mentioned by the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) in his thoughtful speech, have an effect. We should not go back to the predict-and-provide approach which, for example, led to problems on the M25. That road quickly filled up with traffic, and created journeys. Those journeys may initially have improved people's quality of life, but they also caused congestion, which worsened it.
	If they are not already doing so, the Government should examine whether, instead of building an extra lane on motorways, we should use the hard shoulderperhaps the Minister could address that issue when he replies. Many people throw up their hands in horror at such an idea because of the safety implications. However, people use the hard shoulder all the time when motorways are being rebuilt and resurfaced, and most hon. Members will have seen a sign at the side of the motorway saying that free pick-up or towing is available at a certain point. One drives along the hard shoulder, and there is no emergency lane. We have to use the tarmac that we have.
	The hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) mentioned parking. We build roads, resurface them, but then people park on them and clog up arterial routes. Parking on side streets does not affect traffic movement very much, but parking on main roads does.

Don Foster: The hon. Gentleman is right that, before we build more roads, we need to make better use of those that we already have. However, does he not agree that instead of encouraging the dangerous practice of using the hard shoulder on motorways, it would be better to have a Government-led campaign to stop people hogging the central lane of the motorway, effectively reducing three lanes to two?

Rob Marris: I agree entirely, and was going to come on to a personal bugbearpeople driving in the second lane when the first is empty, or even in the third lane when the first two lanes are empty. However, on the issue of parked cars clogging up roads, the Stafford road in my constituency is being examined as a possible site for a pilot project for a red route outside London. That route would partly run through my constituency, but principally through that of my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase). Both of us have major concerns about whether that is necessary and wonder whether anyone will obey that system in a year's time. Like most Members, I come down to London at least four days a week to fulfil my duties, and I see people parking on red routes, but nothing is done about that. However, the proposal is to spend 750,000 on a red route in my constituency and that of my hon. Friend. I suspect that, a year after that route is built, we will be back to where we were because there will be no enforcement.

Angela Watkinson: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there are circumstances in which roadside parking has the advantage of inhibiting speeding, which is dangerous in built-up areas? If people are failing to obey the speed limit, roadside parking helps to calm traffic.

Rob Marris: I agree entirely that that is true in some cases. That leads nicely into my next point about bicycles. One reason why bicycle lanes are painted on roads is to visually narrow the road for car driverson average, car speeds drop by 4 per cent. in those urban areas, even when there are no bicycles in the bicycle lane. The Government are making a good job of encouraging cycle use, and I urge them to continue expanding the Sustrans network and so on. However, I urge them to look more closely at segregated bike lines. Countries with a high level of bicycle usage often have segregated bicycle lanes in urban areas.
	I urge the Government to reconsider the cycle helmet campaign. The advertising associated with that campaign suggests that riding a bicycle is dangerous. It can be, but not doing so and becoming unfit can lead to people of the average age of right hon. and hon. Members dropping dead of heart attacks. People should be encouraged to cycle safely, but the current advertising campaign on cycle helmets is shocking in nature, and will put people off cycling. If, as a society and a country, we wish to encourage people to use helmets, we should encourage people driving motor cars to wear helmets, as that would have much greater safety benefits.
	The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) mentioned walking, buses and the school run, so I shall not talk about that. However, I would urge the Governmentand this is not simply a matter for the Department for Transportto examine the matter of school catchment areas. That is a particular problem for people in London, but it is also a problem for people in large urban areas such as the west midlands. As a society, we need to look at the question of whether we should have catchment areas for schools. Since we have had a geographical free-for-all, the so-called school run has increased in distance and volume.
	To conclude, it bears repeating that we need to take a creative look at private transportbicycles and carspublic transport and road usage. Society and the Government must be realistic when debating these things, or we will not solve the transport problems on our small island, particularly in England. However, as politicians, we can seek to work with our constituents to ameliorate the transport problems that we have inherited because of 40 years of underinvestment, a high population density and land usage patterns. We need to think creatively about the problems that will arise when we have electric carsI urge the Minister to take note of that. One of the reasons why people like me have been suggesting for many years that it would be better to lessen the amount of miles driven in private motor cars is air pollution. Private motor cars are now much less air-polluting. When we get electric vehicles, many members of society and many constituents will think, I can drive my car anywhere now. You've been telling me for years that I shouldn't drive it because of pollution. Well, I have an electric vehicle now and I'll drive it where I like. Congestion will worsen and the division of communities by roads will potentially get worse. There is a problem of motorist psychology that we will have to deal with.

Andrew Bennett: Before my hon. Friend gets too enthusiastic for the electric car, he should remember that the electricity must be generated, and we have not solved the problem of ensuring that all our electricity generation is green.

Rob Marris: I agree. I would not want my hon. Friend to misunderstand me. I was not getting enthusiastic about the electric car per se, but saying that when electric cars become more widely available, many people will think it is green to drive those cars, overlooking the point my hon. Friend raises and creating congestion problems.

Angela Watkinson: This has been an interesting and wide-ranging debate. I shall concentrate my remarks on the private motor car. Indeed, I shall celebrate the private motor car, if that is not too new Labour an expression. There is another new Labour expression. Until my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) spoke, I had intended to comment that we have not heard the new Labour soundbite integrated transport mentioned once. I have always been intrigued to know what it meant. Now I do. What used to be called integrated transport is now called a multi-modal study. That clears that up.
	Government must offer a realistic choice between public and private transport. Most people would choose to use both from time to time. Road traffic would then find its own level. There need be no coercion from this anti-car Government to get people on to public transport. The Government's policies are anti-car. The use of the private car is one of life's great freedoms. To travel from and to wherever one chooses, at a time that one chooses, in the company one chooses is an enormous freedom. Public transport can never match that, but there are occasions when we shall all need it. Indeed, some people need to use it all the time, so the need for a good public transport system is undoubted.
	The Government are not happy with people having too much freedom and choice. They cannot control them, so they place as many obstacles, costs and difficulties in the way of motorists as they can. Still, the first major purchase of any young person when they have an income, the first thing that they save up for, their pride and joy, is their own motor car. It brings an independence incomparable with any other way of travelling. The challenge for any Government is to provide a road network to meet people's need, not to engineer people's needs to suit Government policy. We must have a road network that will allow vehicles to travel from A to B quickly and safely. There is growing demand, and it will not decrease.

Rob Marris: The hon. Lady speaks about engineering demand to suit Government policy. It was the Government whom she supported who rightly introduced tax differentials to persuade people not to buy leaded petrol. That was the kind of social manipulation that she decries. I support it, and I think she would have supported it at the time. It was wonderfully successful.

Angela Watkinson: Lead has an environmental implication, but the volume of traffic on the road is a different issue. We must allow everybody who needs to travel the choice of mode of travel, so that road traffic will find its own level. The largest increase in the use of the private motor car is among pensioners and older people, particularly older women77 per cent. of older women hold driving licences and use cars. It would be a brave Government who took away or sought to curtail that new-found freedom and opportunity and the fundamental improvement it brings to lifestyle.
	We have high road tax and proposed new motorway tolls, which I know are under consideration, although no decisions have been made. The persecuted motorist has become the milch-cow of the nation. We have the highest fuel taxes in Europe. The total tax take from motorists was 45 billion last year. I hope the Minister will be able to tell us what it was spent on. It certainly was not spent on the national road network.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms), who is no longer in his place, commented that even when we have new roads, the Government cannot resist interfering with them and putting traffic lights on roundabouts and junctions, which inhibit traffic flow. There is a case for traffic lights in those circumstances to be used only at peak times and to be switched off the rest of the time or adjusted according to traffic flow. Anyone who has worked for or served on local authorities, as I have, will know how much time and taxpayers' money are spent on what is euphemistically called traffic management.
	Of course, road safety is paramount and local authorities have a serious responsibility for road safety, particularly in the vicinity of schools, residential areas, shops or anywhere where pedestrians want to cross the road and come into conflict with motor vehicles. A Labour Memberthe hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), I thinkmentioned the problem of traffic around schools and the changing habits of getting children to school. When my children went to school in the early 1960s, it was quite safe for me to see them across the road outside my house, and then they walked, probably up to three quarters of a mile, unsupervised and unaccompanied. I did not worry all day whether they had arrived and whether they would come home safely. Times have changed and parents are too worried to allow their children to do that now. In many families both parents work. The mother, as well as the father, needs to get to work, so that necessitates taking the children to school by car. The problem is not as simple as it sounds.

Greg Knight: Does my hon. Friend agree that when one considers traffic management measures, it is increasingly becoming clear that speed humps are not the answer to the problem? In cases where speed humps have been put in place, almost 90 per cent. of the population who originally wanted the speed humps want them removed because of the increase in noise and pollution that they cause, as vehicles slow and then accelerate away after they have negotiated the humps.

Angela Watkinson: My right hon. Friend is right. I was coming on to a range of traffic management devices, including speed humps, which are often counterproductive, although they seemed like a good idea at the time they were put in.
	Another problem is inappropriate speed limits. If people cannot see the point of, for example, a 30 mph speed limit if there are no side roads from which traffic might join the main road, and if there is no housing and thus no pedestrians, they automatically want to speed. That is just the sort of location where cameras are being installed, and they are a tax-collecting device.
	I make a plea to the Minister: will he ensure that, in special circumstances, local authorities can install repeater signs along 30 mph stretches of road? In my constituency, there is a road that has a very bad pedestrian accident record. It has a 30 mph speed limit that applies close to where it is joined by a stretch of road with a 60 mph limit. Motorists do not always observe the change and there have been several nasty accidents. I have already written to the Department about the issue, but will the Minister consider whether, in special circumstances or in the light of a bad accident record, repeater signs can be used in 30 mph zones? My local council said that if it introduced the policy on the road in question, it would have to introduce it throughout the borough, which would be impossible. However, if there were some way of designating difficult spots as eligible for repeater signs, I would be eternally grateful.
	I also have grave reservations about cycle lanes. There are cycle lanes in my constituency that no cyclist who has any regard for his life would dare to use, as the lane is too narrow and there is scarcely room for two cars to pass each other in the remaining part of the carriageway. Some cycle lanes are so narrow that I can imagine cyclists who use them being knocked over or having their shoulders brushed by large vehicles. I think that we should be more circumspect about where cycle lanes are introduced.
	Bus lanes often cause car users enormous frustration when they are empty but all the other vehicles are crowded into half the carriageway and there is not a bus in sight. When I was an Essex county councillor, on a road in Chelmsford that I used twice every day, I made a point of noting how many buses there werevery often there were noneand how many people were using any bus that I saw. The bus lane was not an efficient use of road space, because on the rare occasions when I saw a bus, it often contained only two or three people. We need to be more circumspect about the use of bus lanes. If a road is full of buses and the buses are full of passengers, bus lanes are justified, but the other side of the coin is the fact that introducing bus lanes for their own sake does not always represent an efficient use of road space.

Greg Knight: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is ridiculous that some areas have 24-hour bus lanes, but not a 24-hour bus service?

Angela Watkinson: My right hon. Friend adds to the point that I have been making. The issue needs to be considered and we need to bring common sense into making best use of road space.
	When I was a Havering councillor, I chaired the local public transport committee. Its members were crusading public transport champions and anti-car in their attitudes, but when I asked how many of them around the table had used public transport to attend a meeting, I found that none of them had done so; they had all used their cars. There is an element of hypocrisy in championing public transport over the private motor car.
	Many housing developments, especially in inner cities, are now being built without parking provision on the basis of the theory that people who live near enough to public transport access points such as stations or bus stops will not want to own a car. Even if people use public transport to travel to and from work, many of them want a private motor car for leisure. If housing developments do not include any parking provision, people park in neighbouring roads and annoy everyone else. Again, that is an issue on which the theory is not borne out in practice.
	Policy must be realistic and must accommodate cars. They are here to stay and people like them. People who do not drivethe morally crusading and superior I've never owned a car brigade whom we have all metlike cars too, but those of other people. How many times have we heard somebody say, Would you mind running me home as it's not safe to travel on a bus at this time of night and it's not far out of your way? The hypocrisy is breathtaking. The answer is local policy making to suit local circumstances that is not driven by Government targets and directives on how to slow down the traffic.
	That brings me to London congestion charging, which is just another tax on the hapless motorist. Nobody drives in central London merely to annoy the Mayor of London; they do so because they have to. The congestion charging scheme had so little to do with genuine congestion that the Mayor had to make the situation worse to justify itand very inventive he was too. There were road closures, diversions, roadworks andthis was the real brainwaveall-red phases on traffic lights. That cannot be denied; too many people experienced it, including me. Nothing moved in any direction and no pedestrians wanted to cross. Everything would be at a standstill in all directions and the lights all at red, with the traffic piling up nicely in every direction. Drivers were exasperated, fuel was being wasted and emissions were building. Then came the killer punch: The Mayor of London can cure all this, but you'll have to pay for it.
	There we have itroads for the rich. At a stroke, everyone who could not afford to pay 5 a day to travel in the London congestion zone had to make other arrangements, often at great inconvenience. In fact, the scheme has been too successful. The income is lower than expected, so the zone will have to be extended to recoup the huge setting-up costs, possibly as far as Heathrow. Imagine the large numbers of people approaching Heathrow every day: it will be a wonderful area for tax collection. I am particularly concerned about the Thames gateway area because a huge mixed development is on its way, with houses, businesses and leisure facilities, and that will generate a lot of additional traffic. The area will be a sitting duck for another congestion zone. Upminster, my constituency, which is famously at the end of the District line, has suffered from commuter parking for a long time. Now, it is a park-and-ride area for people who used to drive into London but now stop at Upminster and come the rest of the way in on the train to avoid the congestion charge.
	For most of us, life would be impossible without the use of the private car for at least some of our journeys. For example, I would still be trying to complete last Saturday's schedule if I had tried to do it on public transport. Public transport needs to be safe, reliable, clean, affordable and, above all, convenient if people are to choose it in preference to their own cars for getting to work every day or for their leisure use.
	We need to improve the roads that we have and to increase our motorway network in economically affordable and environmentally friendly ways in order to build a road system that is fit for the 21st century. Cars are liberating for work, family, leisure and business, and they generate prosperity. The next Conservative Government will recognise that. The persecution of the motorist will end, because Conservatives are not afraid to admit that they drive cars.

Christopher Chope: This has been an excellent debate. My only regret is that it takes place on the day on which the Minister and I were both looking forward to being present in Christchurch for the opening of the coastguard training centre at Steamer Point.
	On 17 June, a good backcloth for the debate appeared on the front page of The Independent, in the shape of a headline saying, Derailed: how transport has become Labour's most spectacular failure. Shortly after that, we had corroboration of the fact that the message is getting quite close to home with the Prime Minister, when Lauren Booth, the half-sister of the Prime Minister's wife, wrote in The Mail on Sunday:
	The train services in most of the areas we looked into were touch and go at best. The motorways? Congested to a virtual standstill Monday to Friday.
	No doubt that lady can afford to take the option that is not open to most other people in this country of moving to France.
	We heard some excellent contributions, and I hope to be able to comment on most of them. My hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) regretted the cuts in the road programme during the Major Government, reminded us of the history of the new Labour Government, who started off with further such cuts in 1997, and welcomed what he rightly described as the Government's deathbed repentance in reversing some of those cuts.
	My hon. Friend commented on road safety, a subject that came up a lot in the debate, largely as a result of yesterday's interview with my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins). Conservative Members will take no lessons from Labour on road safety. In 18 years, we reduced the annual toll of fatalities by 3,233from 6,831 in 1978 to 3,598 in 1996. That is a 45 per cent. reduction. By 1998, the total had fallen to 3,421. But what was the figure last year? It was 3,431higher than in 1999, 2000 or 2001.

Andrew Bennett: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Christopher Chope: I shall in a minute, but I want to emphasise these figures.
	When I was the Minister with responsibility for road safety from 1990 to 1992, fatalities fell from 5,373 in 1989 to 4,229 in 1992a reduction of 1,144 road deaths in three years. By contrast, in the past three years, road deaths have increased. In my submission, that is because the Government are preoccupied with over-zealous enforcement of speed limits at the expense of education and engineering.

Andrew Bennett: Any fall in the number of casualties on the road is of course welcome, whether it includes fatalities or not, but will the hon. Gentleman put the figures into the context of miles actually driven, which gives a very different picture? I am sure that he agrees that that is the sensible way to make the calculation.

Christopher Chope: That method reveals an even greater proportional reduction between 1978 and 1996 than has occurred more recently, as is borne out by House of Commons Library figures. The hon. Gentleman should ask what has changed during the period involved. The speed limits have not changed, but the present Government have invested far less in road infrastructure than the Conservative Government did. They have also taken a much more relaxed approach to education about road accidents and evaluation of the facts underlying them.

Patrick McLoughlin: My hon. Friend and I served together in the Department of Transport for a while. Does he agree that one reason for the dramatic fall that he has described is the bypass building programme? Taking cars out of towns has helped to reduce the number of fatalities, which shows that a reduction can also be achieved through better roads.

Christopher Chope: My hon. Friend is right. It is estimated that the number of road casualties can be reduced by between 30 and 40 per cent. through increased investment in roads.

Mark Tami: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Christopher Chope: I will not give way now. I have only a short time to respond to some of the points that have been made.
	The hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) was right to emphasise the importance of investment in roads. I thank him for saluting the work in his part of the country for which I was responsible as Roads Minister. He is not alone, however, in pointing out that road investment is related to external investment in our economy. He will have seen the report in last Sunday's Observer warning of a UK transport crisis deterring investors. The chief executive of the FTSE 100-listed company Exel said:
	unreliability of British road and rail systems . . . was a key factor deterring . . . companies from investing in Britain.

Bob Blizzard: I would have dearly loved to pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for the work that was done in my part of the country when he was a Minister, but unfortunately it did not happen. My point was that, although all those road schemes were promised by Roads to Prosperity in 1990, they were abandoned. Our area never benefited from them.

Christopher Chope: I think that the hon. Gentleman is saying, in a rather skilful way, that he is sorry that I lost my seat in 1992 and was no longer involved after that.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) expressed concern about the prospect of increased congestion, delays and traffic chaos on the M27. As a Member with a south coast constituency, I share his concern. In an intervention, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) spoke of the need for more roads appropriate to the area. My hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) celebrated the motor car. I shall show her a copy of a book that is displayed prominently on my bookshelfThe Boys' Book of Roads, a celebration of investment in our road infrastructure.
	In an unreconstructed tribute to old socialism, the hon. Member for Luton, North (Mr. Hopkins) called for renationalisation of the railways. He also asked a question that was echoed by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris): why are the Government cutting the freight facilities grant? I hope that the Minister will answer that pertinent question.
	We are increasingly familiar with signs saying Queues ahead and Caution: queues for the next 10 miles. Queues ahead, of course, has been a catchphrase of socialist regimes throughout the ages, but we must now face the prospect of queuesindeed, worsening queuesfor the next 10 years.
	The trust factor is very relevant to what we are discussing. At the end of last month, asked in a YouGov poll whether they believed that the Government had on balance been honest and trustworthy, 29 per cent. of respondents said that they had been honest and 62 per cent. said that they had not. That is borne out by the devious way in which the Secretary of State and others have misrepresented the policies of the Conservative party on getting 20 per cent. savings where there is inefficiency. If the Secretary of State reads the letter from the chairman of Network Rail, he will see that Network Rail has identified a 20 per cent. reduction in costs within three years, an annual saving of 1.3 billion. He describes that as challenging but realistic. If Network Rail can manage a 20 per cent. reduction in costs without damaging services, why cannot a lot of other organisations, too? That is the point that Conservative Members are making.
	We have the highest rail fares in Europe, the highest motoring taxes in Europe and we have the Prime Minister's admission that transport is probably the worst of our public services. In a survey in The Mail on Sunday on 22 June, people were asked whether they thought that Britain's public services had improved under Labour. Fourteen per cent. said that they thought that they had improved, and 54 per cent. said that they thought that they had got worse. That is the indictment against the Government.
	What do the Government promise in return? Yet more congestion on the roads, further delays on the railways and ever-escalating costs for travellers and taxpayers. The people have been taken for a ride by the Government's transport policy for six years. It has been a very expensive, inefficient and uncomfortable ride. We are proud to be the only party voting today in favour of fair treatment for passengers, motorists and taxpayers. 3.46 pm

David Jamieson: I, too, was sorry not to visit the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) in his constituency today but delighted to hear what he had to say in the debate. I think that he was a lawyer in a previous incarnation. If this had been a court of law and you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, had been the judge, we would have thrown his case out for lack of evidence, supposition, half-truth, innuendo, hearsay and fabrication. His speech and that of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) were long on rhetoric and very short on facts.
	The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale talked about a fair deal for the motorist. He spoke at considerable length, probably because he had difficulty mustering his Back Benchers to come to support him today. There were very few, although two Opposition Whips intervened and spoke in the debate. It is a good job the Whips can get themselves here on his side.
	I think that the hon. Gentleman used to scribble speeches for the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) when he was a local government Minister. I dare say he penned something like, Fair deal on the poll tax. I saw the hon. Member for Christchurch twitch then. I know that he was a great supporter of the poll tax. The country did not trust Conservative Members then and it does not trust them now.
	I do not know whether the hon. Member for Christchurch has seen this quote:
	We have gridlock. The rush hour begins at 6 a.m. and is still in full flow after three hours. In many parts of the south-east the traffic queue from one junction runs to the queue to the next.
	That was the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) speaking in 1996, after 17 years of Conservative Government. So much for the nonsense that we have heard today about the wonderful golden age when the Conservatives were in office. I do not know whether he belonged to the swivel-eyed, barmy army from ward eight in Broadmoor at the time, but that was certainly his view.
	We have had some interesting and thoughtful contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) and for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) and the hon. Members for Poole (Mr. Syms), for Fareham (Mr. Hoban), and for Upminster (Angela Watkinson).
	The hon. Member for Upminster made some interesting comments. She talked about using a car to travel to your destination when you want, where you want and how you want. I seem to remember someone else saying that once in another context but you cannot do it if the roads are congested and you cannot get through.
	The hon. Member for Christchurch commended to the hon. Lady a book called, The Boys' Book of Roads. I do not know whether that is the same document that he may have had a part in writing in 1993. The hon. Lady made some points about road charging and congestion charging. I have the document here, and strongly commend it. It is entitled, Paying for Better Motorways: Issues for Decision. I think it was published just after the time when the hon. Member for Christchurch was the Minister for Roads and Traffic. It says in paragraph 3.8:
	There are two ways of relieving congestion: increasing road capacity or reducing demand . . . The second can best be achieved by imposing a price mechanismby charging users for the congestion costs they impose on others.
	I do not know whether that statement appeared in The Boys' Book of Roads.
	I have to hand another document, on urban congestion charging. I doubt whether the hon. Member for Christchurch can make any claim to it, but the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) might know something about it. It states:
	The Government will consider, in partnership with local authorities, the need for further local powers,
	we should note the following
	eg to introduce congestion charging, or to control vehicle access to sensitive areas.
	I do not know how that fits with the ambition of the hon. Member for Upminster and her comments about the Conservative party today. That was the reality of the Conservatives when in government, but it is not what we have heard from them today.
	This debate was almost as interesting for what was not said as for what was. The Conservatives said very little about buses, yet unlike the hon. Member for Upminster, about a quarter of people in this country do not have access to a motor car. In fact, 40 per cent. of my constituents have no such access, but we heard precious little from the Conservatives about that issue.

Greg Knight: Will the Minister give way?

David Jamieson: I will not give way at the moment. [Interruption.] We need to hear about one or two things that the Conservatives do not want to hear about. It is clear that they do not want to hear about buses, because ordinary people have to use them. There is widespread use

Greg Knight: rose

David Jamieson: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman could wait until I have finished this point. There is widespread use of buses in London, but in many other places it is in fact the only available form of public transport. That is why we have introduced imaginative schemes such as that referred to by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and that is why, notwithstanding the chuntering from Conservative Back Benchers, we have introduced rural and urban grants to assist in the development of bus routesroutes that were taken away under a Conservative Government.

Greg Knight: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Will he now move on from this unedifying knockabout and answer some of the questions that were asked? In particular, will he deal with the issue, raised by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), of opening up the hard shoulder on motorways during busy times? Will he pledge to the House today that he will look at the possibility of opening up the offside hard shoulder on the northern-bound carriageway of the M1, near the M25, where the biggest congestion occurs every day of the week?

David Jamieson: If the right hon. Gentleman did not make long interventions, I would be able to deal with some of the points that were raised. Indeed, I intended to get to that particular one.
	Interestingly, we gained a slight insight into Tory policy yesterday, when they briefly lifted the lid on it. For a moment, we were able to look into their secret box, but when challenged by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about the actual cost of such ambitions, and whether a Conservative Government would provide the necessary funds, they said nothing. [Interruption.] Conservative. Members can complain and shake their heads, but their own leader said Theythe shadow Treasury team
	are looking at a target of 20 per cent. savings across the board in Government spending.
	I cannot see how that relates to Conservative Members' ambitions for extra investment in transport.
	The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale chided Liberal Democrat local authorities. At the time in question, I think most were Conservative-controlled, but history may tell a different story. I can give him some specific figures. For example, in 1996 the local transport settlement in Cumbriawhich is not a million miles from his constituencywas some 3.75 million. Today, that figure is 16.69 million, but we heard no mention of that from him. That is a huge increase that local authorities can spend on their own local transport plans. The figure for Dorset in 1996 was a mere 1.186 million. That figure in 2002 was 7.75 million. Those are substantial increases in funding by a Labour Government for local authorities to use to provide improved transport in their areas. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) is about to tell me about the substantial increases in funding for Devon.

Angela Browning: On the question of credibility, is the Minister aware that the Devon and Cornwall business council last week described his remarks as cloud-cuckoo observations when, after travelling on the French rail system in 2001, he promised that his Government could deliver something comparable to what the rest of Europe has within 10 years? The business council went on to say:
	Many a jocular pint glass was raised to David in the pubs of Penzance, Truro and Plymouth that night!

David Jamieson: I am delighted that the Devon and Cornwall business council has over the last couple of years started showing some interest in public transport, particularly the railways. When I raised issues with the same people, then in different organisations, they used to say that the roads, not the railways, were important. It is interesting to note that, under the Labour Government, those people are expressing a much greater interest in public transport. We welcome their interest and their conversion.
	Reference was made to road safety and the hon. Member for Christchurch referred to the improvements made over the years. Governments can be proud of our record on road safety, as we have substantially reduced casualties on the roads over a long period. The amount of traffic on the road and the number of miles travelled have substantially increased, but the rate of casualties has decreased. It is important to take account of the reduction in serious injuries as well as deaths on our roads and to note that the number of children injured on the roads has greatly diminished over recent years. Governments of all parties should be congratulated on that.
	The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale spoke about the netting-off scheme and speed cameras, which I prefer to call safety cameras. There is symmetry in the fact that the safety cameras ensure that the money provided for those cameras comes not from the taxpayer, but from the speeding motorist who is breaking the law. At one time, the Tory party used to consider itself the party of law and order, so I would have thought that it would rather like that symmetry.
	What has been the effect of the safety cameras on the schemes that we have introduced? On the eight sites, there has been a 35 per cent. reduction in the number of casualties. That means 280 people are either alive or have not been seriously injured because of the presence of safety cameras at those particular sites. If it is now Conservative policy to have more children and elderly people killed and injured on the road[Interruption.] I would like to see how they phrase the policy in their documents. Conservative Members may not like it, but I have to say that although the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale does not strike me as much of a boy racer, he has created a charter for them.

David Maclean: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
	Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
	Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:
	The House proceeded to a Division.

Madam Deputy Speaker: I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.

The House having divided: Ayes 151, Noes 382.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
	Madam Deputy Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That this House welcomes the Government's continuing commitment to investment of 180 billion through the Ten Year Transport Plan; applauds the decisive steps it has taken to set the country's railway system on the way to recovery following the shambles it inherited from the last Government's botched privatisation; recognises the balanced approach it has taken to maintaining and improving the trunk road network, taking account of wider environmental objectives; and notes achievements already evident in, for example, improved rolling stock for rail passengers, more reliable services for bus users, better maintenance of trunk roads for motorists and falling numbers of road accidents.

Small Businesses

Madam Deputy Speaker: I must advise the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

Tim Yeo: I beg to move,
	That this House deplores the impact of Government policy on small and medium-sized enterprises; condemns the Government for increasing the burden of regulation, taxation and bureaucracy, for blurring the economic and social agenda and for wasting money on Government branding and quangoes; and calls for fair treatment for small businesses to allow British enterprise to create jobs and wealth for the benefit of the whole community.
	I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests.
	I warmly welcome the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to her place in the House todaya place, as I read in The Daily Telegraph today, she intends to occupy not merely until the age of 60, but well beyond then. Of course, that date is many years hence. I wonder whether she has checked that ambition with the Prime Minister, because she rubbished his attachment to the cult of youth in terms that were so candid as to be worthy of the Leader of the House.
	I also wonder whether the electors of Leicester may have a say in that matter. Perhaps they will be so grateful to her for the fact that she proposes to postpone not only her own retirement but that of all her constituents that they will regard that as a reason to go on electing her as long as she chooses to honour them with her candidacy[Interruption.] I hope that the Secretary of State will listen to the debate. I welcome her decision to address the real issue of age discrimination, and I look forward to debating it with her on another occasionsince she did not choose to make a statement to the House when she published her consultation paper, I hope that there will be a proper opportunity to debate the issue on the Floor of the House at a later date.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman ought now to address the motion.

Tim Yeo: I am, but I would be dismayedI know that this is not your intention, Madam Deputy Speakerif it were thought that age discrimination was not relevant to small businesses. I believe that it is absolutely relevant to them.
	This is the first debate on small businesses on the Floor of the House since the Secretary of State took office, although some years ago we were promised an annual debate on the subject. The Opposition have chosen to remedy that omission by giving up half our time today for such a debate. The Government's reluctance to discuss small business is in marked contrast to their enthusiasm for debating hunting. As there has not been a whisper of protest about that extraordinarily distorted set of priorities from the Secretary of State, people involved in small business must conclude that she agrees with her colleagues in the Government that considering the needs of small business is less urgent than pursuing the vendetta against field sports.

Angela Browning: I congratulate my hon. Friend on drawing attention to an election pledge by the Labour Governmentto hold an annual small business debate. Does he agree that when the Government came into office, the slogan was Education, education, education, but as far as small businesses are now concerned, it is Legislation, legislation, legislation. Is not that what is crippling small businesses?

Tim Yeo: My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. I know how many times she has raised on the Floor of the House and privately her concerns about the plight of small businesses in her constituency. The Government's unwillingness to debate the needs of small business is perhaps not surprising, given that many of the difficulties faced by small business today are directly or indirectly the result of the Government's actions and inactions. Small businesses bear a disproportionately heavy share of the cost of the extra regulations to which my hon. Friend has just referred: regulations that this Government have introduced, which the British Chambers of Commerce estimates are costing a total of 20 billion. Small businesses are disproportionate victims of the extra taxes imposed on business by this Labour Government, estimated in total, by the CBI, to amount to 47 billion. According to this year's Budget submission from the BCC, the cost of complying with new employment regulations is 50 times higher for a small company than it is for the largest company. Against that background, it is no wonder that Labour does not want to debate small business.

Lembit �pik: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that small businesses are suffering terrible stresseconomically as well as psychologically, for very small businesseswith regard to insurance. Insurance companies can effectively drive out of business small businesses that are profitable in all other respects, because they cannot afford the incredible and often extortionate insurance premiums.

Tim Yeo: The hon. Gentleman anticipates a point to which I shall refer in a moment. He is right to raise it.
	Against the background that I have described, it is no surprise that when I met the Forum of Private Business yesterday in Manchester, I was told that fewer of its members expect their businesses to grow now than at any time since Labour came to power. Whatever pro-business rhetoric Ministers like to deploy, their actions tell a different story: a story of neglect of the overriding need to protect the competitive position of British business; a story of increasing hostility to the aims and values of business and enterprise, which are now respected by Government only in so far as they create a milch-cow from which Labour can extract more and more taxation; and a story of ignorance and even disdain for the challenges faced by small business.

Geraint Davies: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the vast majority of the estimated on-costs that he has just quoted relate, first, to the minimum wage, secondly, to the European working time directive and, thirdly, to holiday rights? Is he saying that he would try to repeal any of those, or is he simply uttering a lot of hot air? Does he not accept that measures such as the working families tax credit reduce real wage costs for small businesses and help to stimulate them in a stable economy?

Tim Yeo: The hon. Gentleman will regret making that intervention, as he has clearly exposed his ignorance of small businesses' concerns, which will not go unnoticed by his electors.
	My point was that under this Labour Government, in the six years since 1997, the burdens on small business in terms of taxation and regulations have risen to levels that have never been seen in the whole of Britain's history.

Angus Robertson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that small businesses in Scotland have to pay a much higher burden than small businesses in England and Wales, with a business tax rate 9 per cent. higher than that south of the border? How does he think businesses in Scotland can compete in an environment that is clearly uncompetitive?

Tim Yeo: Businesses in Scotland are suffering under the particularly burdensome regime of a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition: a warning to the rest of the United Kingdom if ever we were faced with a similar threat. They are also labouring with the problem of devolution, which has meant that no one is clear about which responsibilities lie on which side of the border in terms of policies that impact on business.
	The harm that new Labour has done to small business is especially worrying, because more than a third of all employees work for enterprises that employ fewer than 20 people. Historically, small business has been the engine of job creation. According to the Federation of Small Businesses, six out of seven private-sector jobs created between 1995 and 1999 were created by small and medium-sized enterprises.

Geraint Davies: Under this Government.

Tim Yeo: Exactly, because under this Government today, the only engine of job creation is the obsessive determination with which Ministers spend more and more taxpayers' money to expand the ranks of the already swollen army of bureaucrats who work in the public sector.
	Despite a huge increase in Department of Trade and Industry spending, the Government do little to addresses the real concerns of small businesses. Those concerns focus first on cash, secondly on people, and thirdly on time. Cash is being drained out of business by huge rises in taxation. Employer national insurance contributions take 10 billion more from business today than they did in 1997, and business rates take 4.5 billion more from business today than they did in 1997. The new tax on pensions is draining away a further 5 billion a year and, from a standing start only two years ago, the wholly anomalous climate change levy is draining a further 1 billion a year from business.

Jonathan R Shaw: The hon. Gentleman referred to our investment in public services. Does he realise that investment in school buildings, hospitals and public construction works provides much-needed business opportunities for the people about whom he is talking?

Tim Yeo: Had the hon. Gentleman been listening to what I said, he would know that I referred not to investment in public services but to the swollen army of bureaucrats who work in the public sector. If he took the trouble to go to a library to consult the recruitment pages in newspapers and magazines, he would see that the advertisements for public sector jobs are not for nurses or doctorsthey take years to train; there is no tap that can be turned on and offbut for posts such as performance review analysts. Such people do not deliver public services to patients and pupils, but simply create more and more bureaucracy.
	I suspect that the Secretary of State will try to claim that the Government have been sympathetic to business by cutting corporation tax. If she does, she will simply expose her ignorance of small businesses, which seldom find that corporation tax is a problem.

Claire Curtis-Thomas: The hon. Gentleman must, like me, know of many small businesses that could not afford to employ the type of expert who would allow them to interact with bureaucracy, major fund providers, objective 1 requirements and European legislation. The public appointments advertised are for people who would provide that support and those services at little cost to those companies. Businesses were denied that under the previous Administration.

Tim Yeo: I hope that at some stage during the next two and a half hours a Labour Member's intervention will demonstrate that he or she has had some contact with small businesses during the past two years. The hon. Lady's point might well have been handed to her by the Government Whips Office, but it could not have been suggested by any small business person.

Angela Browning: On the matter identified by the hon. Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas), surely the real challenge is the forthcoming temporary workers directive, which is yet to hit small businesses. Small businesses could buy in expertise for a specific project, but they will be penalised for doing that by yet more legislation.

Tim Yeo: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The temporary workers directive will have an especially damaging impact on the United Kingdom. It is a typical example of a piece of European legislation that will have an uneven impact on EU countries because it fails to take account of the unique characteristics of the British labour market.

Geraint Davies: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Yeo: In a moment.
	Small businesses do not worry about corporation tax, especially in their start-up phase. Indeed, many would love to have a corporation tax liability. As soon as they start trading, however, all small businesses are hit by employer national insurance contributions, business rates and the climate change levytaxes that apply before a penny of profit has been earned. By shifting the burden of business tax away from corporation tax on to those other taxes, Labour's policy is directly damaging small business.
	If only Labour shared the Conservative goal of a fair deal for small business, in which no small business was held back or left behind, it might understand the damage that is done by draining cash out of a small business

Geraint Davies: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Gentleman to say explicitly that Labour Members have no business experience? I have run businesses with a turnover of 1 million; all he has is a connection with cattle semen. I do not want to talk about cattle semen; that is for him to discuss. I want to talk about my business experience, but he will not allow me to intervene.

Madam Deputy Speaker: That is a point of debate, not a point of order.

John Bercow: And a pretty bad one at that.

Tim Yeo: My hon. Friend is right. It might reassure my hon. Friends to know that I do not intend to give way to the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Geraint Davies) again.
	If Labour Members shared our goals of aiming for a fair deal for small business, they might understand the damage done when cash is drained from a small business at its most vulnerable stage of development. I fear that Ministers in this Government do not understand that. People who have never been personally involved in small business seldom understand the importance of cash. People whose salaries have always been put into their bank account on the 28th of each month, regardless of what they have or have not done, do not know what it is like to wake up in the night sweating about whether one has the cash to pay the bills. They have never spent half their day chasing the payment of invoices to get a bit of cash. They do not realise the damage that the Government's tax policy is doing day in, day out to small businesses.
	It is not only tax that drains cash from small businesses. Huge increases in employer liability insurance premiums are another heavy burden. The Federation of Small Businesses has reported on an Essex company that shreds confidential wasteprobably a booming business in the light of the Government's difficulties. It faces a 400 per cent. increase in premiums on its latest renewal notice. That follows a 250 per cent. increase last year. Those premiums were demanded despite the company's having no machinery or factory premises, and despite the fact that it had not made a claim for 30 years. Given that the Treasury collects more than 2 billion a year in insurance premium tax, which is more than three times the amount of that tax that was paid in the last full year of the Conservative Government, we can be sure that the Chancellor is in no hurry to slow down the rate at which premiums are increasing.
	Instead of the Secretary of State washing her hands of the problem, will she tell us whether the short-term measures proposed by the Government after the recent Department for Work and Pensions review will be implemented in the foreseeable future? Does she plan to provide immediate relief for businesses that may be threatened with closure because of escalating premiums while the more fundamental reforms are considered? In the light of the Office of Fair Trading finding that problems exist in respect of asbestos-related risks and professional indemnity insurance for independent financial advisers, how will she tackle those problems? Does she share my concern, and that of the CBI, about the compensation culture? In addressing the problem of escalating insurance costs, does she agree that it would help if a greater share of the costs were apportioned to claimants who lose a case and if the cost burden were rebalanced, so that not only the claimant, but the claimant's lawyer, has to shoulder an element of the risk?
	The second concern is people. Many employers find it hard to recruit employees with appropriate skills. The Government's obsession with churning out more and more graduates, regardless of whether their degrees equip them for work in the 21st century, does not address the problem. Our approach is to make sure that everyone who will gain from university education receives it, and that those who will gain from other forms of education and training receive those. Even when a small business can find a suitably qualified and trained recruit, it faces other difficulties in the form of employment regulations, which frequently act as a disincentive to offering jobs. Our fair deal for small business will be a fair deal for employees as well as employers, because we want a country in which no one is left behind and no one is held back.
	What does the Secretary of State think will be the effect on some of the more vulnerable potential employees, who might be left behind, of her cherished work-life balance? Does she agree with the Institute of Directors, two thirds of whose employer members believe that her policy will reduce the chances of younger women finding jobs? If she does not agree with that bleak but entirely predictable conclusion, on what does she base her own view? Has she undertaken an assessment of the impact of work-life policies on the job prospects of young people?
	Given that the European Union will soon admit new members such as Hungary and Poland, where wage costs are only a quarter of those in Britain, could there be a worse time to pursue the agenda that the Secretary of State favours? Is it not grossly irresponsible to do so, presumably to curry favour with trade union bosses, secure with their comfortable salaries and expense accounts, without regard to the damage that she is doing to the chances of the next generation of British workers?

John Bercow: My hon. Friend rightly highlights the absence of, and the need for, a light-touch regulatory environment. Is it not a damning indictment of the Government that for six successive years they have refused to publish an annual statement of the cost of regulation, or indeed of their plans for a reduction in that cost?

Tim Yeo: It is, as my hon. Friend says in his usual elegant and eloquent way, a damning indictment. It is also a clear admission, first, that, whatever they may say, the Government are not concerned about how much damage they are doing to business and, secondly, that they are fully aware that if they did publish such a statement, it would be clear that they were undermining the competitive position of British business and, therefore, the future job prospects of the British people.
	I hope that the Secretary of State will tell us whether she thinks that a small business will be more or less likely to take on new staff as a result of the Employment Act 2002. Does she consider that the 50 per cent. jump in employment tribunal claims shows that new Labour has created a more, or a less, harmonious relationship between employers and employees? Does she realise that if, in three or four years, private sector jobs are harder to find than they have been for the last two decades, the reason will be the policies of this Government, whose tunnel-visioned, old Labour passion for championing more and more employee rights may end up taking away the most fundamental employee right of all: the right of every woman and man to negotiate with a prospective employer the basis on which they are willing to work?

Andrew Selous: Does my hon. Friend share my concern about the costs of employment tribunals in which the employer is found to be wholly innocent? Earlier this week, I met a man with a small business who told me that a tribunal had cost his firm 27,000. Even though his firm was completely exonerated, he had no chance of getting that money back. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a serious point, which needs to be looked at?

Tim Yeo: It is a very serious point. It is scandalous that many employers are burdened with huge costs as a result of tribunals, some of which involve frivolous claims. Indeed, I am told that there are examples of employees going from one firm to another, taking one case after another to a tribunal.
	If the Secretary of State had any concern for the next generation of workers, and if she were as anxious as the Conservative party is to secure a fair deal for small business, in which no one is left behind or held back, particularly the most vulnerable and least skilled workers, she would argue, as we are doing, for more flexibility in labour marketsthe flexibility that creates jobs, as we see in the United States, instead of the rigidity that destroys them, as we see in Germany, and which, sadly for Britain's future workers, appears to be the model that the Government favour.
	The third concern for small business managers is time, far too much of which is spent by small business people filling in Government forms, trying to understand what new regulations mean for their businesses, and trying to comply with those regulations. Far too much time is spent administering the Government's tax and benefits systems. The handling of the Chancellor's increasingly chaotic attempts at social engineering and wealth redistribution has been forcibly sub-contracted to business, which now not only administers payrolls and the entire national insurance contribution regime, but has been compelled to take over some of the functions of the Benefits Agency.
	As more employees become eligible for some form of tax credit, the Government need to consider the effect that that has on relations between employers and employees. Does it really promote good relationships at work if employees have to disclose intimate financial information to their employer? The time that all of that takes would be better spent talking to customers, improving products, controlling costs, and all the other things that small business people must do. Saving half an hour a week might even allow small business people to get home a little earlier on a Friday evening to spend a little more time with their families. Cutting a few regulations might allow small business people to enjoy a taste of the benefits that the Secretary of State claims to want to create through the work-life balance.

Mark Prisk: My hon. Friend has highlighted an essential issue for small businesses. Is he aware of the latest figures on the number of hours that small business men and women running family firms have to endure? I understand that more than 28 hours a month are spent filling in forms.

Tim Yeo: Some of the figures for the amount of time that small business people have to spend filling in forms and complying with regulations are alarming. That is unproductive time. On a future occasion, I hope to tell the House about some of the forms that small business people are required to complete. However, it is not just red tape that takes up their timeinfrastructure problems do so as well. Britain's increasingly third-world transport system, which we heard about during the previous debate, wastes a huge amount of time and represents a vast burden for business. Ministers themselves have admitted that that costs billions of pounds.

Robert Key: Does my hon. Friend agree that another part of the infrastructure surprisingly neglected by the Government is broadband access for the very companies in rural areas that could most benefit from that new technology? That is proving to be a serious handicap in our competitiveness with other European countries. The Government could have done a lot more, for example, by allowing piggy-backing on their programmes for wiring up doctors' surgeries and schools in rural areas, but they simply have not bothered.

Tim Yeo: My hon. Friend is right, and highlights an area of infrastructure that is the direct responsibility of the DTI. The Government's failure to achieve the ambitious plans that they published for access to broadband is causing genuine problems for many small businesses, particularly in rural areas. Many of my hon. Friends have constituents who cannot get access to broadband now and cannot even get a date when they will have such access.
	In the next few months, I shall set out in more detail what the Conservative fair deal for small business will include. This afternoon, in an attempt to promote constructive debate about these important issues, I invite the Secretary of State to agree that a fair deal for small business must start with the recognition of four fundamental principles. First, the most important thing that any Government can do for business, small or large, is create a stable macro-economic climate. No amount of ministerial intervention, new Government initiatives or grants to bail out failing businesses in the constituencies of ministerial colleagues can replace the need for policies that promote wealth creation and preserve the competitive position of British business. We live in times of exceptional uncertainty, when modern technology and communications have made investment and jobs more internationally mobile than ever before. Investment which, a decade ago, may have been made in Ipswich, is today just as likely to go to India. Whole industries in which western Europe led the world in the last century are migrating to China in the first quarter of this century.
	That is why it is worrying that, under Labour, productivity is rising at only half the rate that it was under the Conservatives. That is why it is worrying that business investment last year suffered its biggest drop for over 10 years, and the second biggest on record since that series of data was started in 1966. That is why it is worrying that last year, strikes cost business more lost days than in any year for more than a decade. That is why it is so worrying for business that, for every week that the Labour Government have been in power, an average of 2,000 manufacturing jobs have been destroyed. That is why it is worrying that Britain's deficit in traded goods is the worst since records began 306 years ago. Those figures are a reminder of worrying trends in the British economy, and they reflect the accumulation of difficulties that small business faces and the gradual erosion of the competitive advantages that Britain fought so hard to win in the 1980s and the early 1990s.
	The second principle to be recognised is that the effectiveness of Government intervention is extremely limited. Take the Small Business Service, on which spending has rocketed to 423 million. Is that sizeable chunk of taxpayers' money achieving added value for small business? It is hard to see that it is. It certainly has not established itself as a champion of small companies in the Government and it is not yet established as a widely used source of valued business advice. The Small Business Service business plan for 2003 states:
	Business Link is being enhanced to improve the support given to those starting a business.
	It continues:
	Key to success will be repositioning and strengthening Business Link as a valued brand.
	Those statements are shorthand for noting Business Link's continued shortcomings and the Government's desire to throw good money after bad.
	The same document goes on to state that a key task for the Small Business Service will be the establishment and rolling evaluation of three regional development agency-led business support pilots in the north-west, the west midlands and the east midlands. It continues:
	A new challenge is to understand the relationship with factors such as company culture, ownership issues and sector-specific issues which can make many small businesses reluctant to grow.
	The Small Business Service will
	map the interdependence of these factors and, by March 2004, publish a 'capabilities for growth' strategy.
	Perhaps the Secretary of State will tell us what all that jargon means and how it translates into any added value for small business.
	The Department of Trade and Industry seems to have decided to exclude such private sector business support groups as the Federation of Small Businesses, the British Chambers of Commerce, the Institute of Directors, the CBI, the Small Business Bureau and the Forum of Private Business. It has excluded those, as well as many more specialist bodies, from playing a leading role in small business development. More is the pity. The DTI will rue the day.
	The third principle concerns tax. It is time to recognise that business is much more heavily taxed than when Labour came to power. No further increase in the tax burden on business can possibly take place. Two weeks ago, the Leader of the House let the cat out of the bag when he admitted that tax would have to go up again next year. Most of us suspected that already. The Chancellor had already had to admit that he got his sums wrong twice, in the pre-Budget report last November and in the Budget in April. Most people believe that his forecasts for tax revenue will again be proved wrong in the next few months.
	Since income tax is a sacred cow that cannot be touchedan extraordinary commitment, as national insurance contributions, which have precisely the same effect as income tax on employees, have already been raisedwe must conclude that business taxes will bear the brunt again next year. If the Secretary of State wants to champion small business, I invite her to make a commitment here today to fight publicly against any proposal by the Chancellor to raise tax on business. She should make it clear that if tax on business is raised again while she is Secretary of State, she will resign her office.
	The fourth and last principle concerns regulation. It is long overdue to recognise that regulation costs business more than ever before and is weakening the competitive position of British business. Regulation damages small business particularly badly. The burden cannot be increased any further. I invite the Secretary of State to introduce sunset clauses into many of the Government's regulations, such as the provisions of the Employment Act 2002, so that their effect on the job prospects of potential workers can be properly analysed. Those four principlesthat small businesses are affected by the macro-economic climate more than anything else; that direct action by the Government without the full involvement of the private sector is of little benefit; that the tax burden on business must now be capped; and that the tide of regulation must be reversedare the crucial pillars on which a fair deal for small business must rest, so that no small business is left behind. I invite the Secretary of State to commit herself to upholding each of those principles.

Claire Curtis-Thomas: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Yeo: No.
	The futures of millions of people working in small businesses throughout Britain can be made more or less secure and their daily working lives easier or harder by the Secretary of State's decisions. I invite her now to break the mould of the past two years, abandon her Government's over-taxing, over-regulating and meddlesome ways and support our motion, which I commend to the House.

Patricia Hewitt: I beg to move, To leave out from House to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	agrees that small and medium-sized businesses are crucial to the prosperity of the nation and will be responsible for many of the new jobs and much of the future innovation in the economy; welcomes the steps that the Government has taken to make it easier than ever before for people to start their own business; acknowledges that the Government has created the economic conditions of macro-economic stability and low and stable interest rates in which small business can grown and prosper; believes that the Government has created a pro-enterprise tax environment; and applauds the Government for improving access to finance for small and medium-sized businesses, removing unnecessary regulations and providing world class business support.
	May I begin by welcoming the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) to the Front Bench? My hon. Friends and I look forward to jousting with him during DTI questions. However, I regret the fact that, in contrast with the hon. Gentleman, who is always courteous in his questions, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) has developed a most unfortunate habit of opening every debate with rather churlish and, I have to say, rather silly remarks.
	I particularly regret that, because this is a debate about small businesses. One of the best things about being Secretary of State for Trade and Industry or Minister for Small Business and E-Commerce, as I was for two years previously, has been that I can get around the country and meet some of our wonderful entrepreneurs and owner-managers. I have met people such as Dave Stevens and his team at Cooke Optics in Leicestershire, who, with the help of a DTI grant, developed the high-definition film lenses that were used in that wonderful film Chicago. It was one of those grants on which the hon. Member for South Suffolk pours scorn, a 140,000 SMART awarda small firms merit award for research. A few weeks ago, Dave Stevens told me in an e-mail:
	It is now our responsibility to return to the UK through 95 per cent. export some revenue from this investment.

Ian Gibson: While my right hon. Friend is extolling the virtues of Leicester, will she add another discovery made in Leicester? DNA fingerprinting is an amazing discovery funded by DTI money through the Office of Science and Technology.

Patricia Hewitt: My hon. Friend, who plays such a superb role in promoting science, is absolutely right. We in Leicester are particularly proud of that discovery, which has created benefits for our whole society and economy.
	I should also like to mention Irene and Arthur Allen in rural Norfolk, who created a tiny company called Listawood 15 years ago. It was a family company that was started around the kitchen table with a 40-a-week enterprise allowance.

Henry Bellingham: It is in my constituency.

Patricia Hewitt: Yes. I visited the firm years ago when I was deputy chair of the Commission on Social Justice. It was a wonderful firm and is now a flourishing manufacturing company. It makes PC products and has a turnover of 8 million and 100 employees. I say to the hon. Member for South Suffolk that, from the outset, it built up the business by recruiting local staff and giving them family-friendly working because that was what they needed. As a result, it has built up a dedicated, loyal and flexible work force who are one of the main reasons for its success.
	A few weeks ago, I visited another Leicestershire company and met Stefan Olsberg and his colleagues at Voice Connect in Groby. They have developed wonderful software that helps schools to cut truancy through text messaging, e-mails and voice mails to parents. People can use whatever system of communication they want. The company is now extending the product to GPs so that they can cut those wasted appointments. It is franchising the business, which it has already expanded to include more than 40 employees, throughout the country, giving other entrepreneurs a chance.
	Let me mention, if I may, one of the many entrepreneurs in my own constituency, Atul Lakhani, whose new restaurant my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) and I had the pleasure of opening last Friday. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, Central (Geraint Davies) founded and grew an outstanding travel business that is promoting the environment and ecologically responsible tourism in Crete.

Andrew Robathan: I am grateful to the Secretary of State, who is my near neighbour in Leicestershire. Does she recall that last February the then Leader of the House, who is now Secretary of State for Health, went to talk to small businesses in Leicestershire? Afterwards, a banner headline in the Leicester Mercury said, Minister offers sympathy about red tape, but all he had to offer was sympathy. When I spoke to small businesses in Leicestershire, they complained that the right hon. Lady had not been visiting them, yet I now hear that she has been visiting them endlessly.

Patricia Hewitt: I visit and talk to small businesses week in, week out, both as Secretary of State and because they are in my constituency, as well as in other parts of the city and the county. I shall turn later to regulation, which is of course important.
	The reality is that whether it is Indian food, tourism, the creative industries or new technologies, our entrepreneurs are leading the way. I was delighted a couple of weeks ago when Surrey Satellite Technologies, one of the companies that has been spun off from the science departments of the university of Surrey, won a Euro30 million contract, the first to be awarded by the European Union, to lead the development of Europe's first satellite navigation system, Galileo.
	Those are examples of outstanding entrepreneurs and businesses throughout our country. For me, they are the real heroes and heroines of our economyentrepreneurs who work incredibly hard, invest their savings and often put their homes at risk in order to build up a team of people, create a great product and grow a business. I sometimes think that if somebody goes into a shop, buys a scratchcard and wins 1 million there is more public celebration of their success than if they grow a business from scratch through sheer hard work and determination.
	I hope that all Members on both sides of the House agree that we should celebrate our entrepreneurs, who do not get great rewards for great failure. If their business fails, they lose their savings and their livelihoods. One of the reasons why I have been so determined to deal with the issue of big rewards for big failure is precisely that the actions of a few damage the reputations of the vast majority of decent, hard-working and determined business people in our country. I want to pay tribute to those millions of small businesses and the owner-managers who run them, who provide more than 12 million jobs, create more than half our national output and now generate nine out of 10 of all new business ideas. They have always been the bedrock of our economy. A century or so ago, we were called a nation of shopkeepers. Today, as the world becomes even more competitive and technology changes faster than ever before, small firms matter even more than they used to. Small businesses are much faster on their feet, much more likely to innovate and much closer to their customers, and they matter all the more in this competitive global economy.

Angus Robertson: I fully endorse the stress that the Secretary of State is placing on the importance of small business in growing the economy. She will be aware that, sadly, powers over the business world in Scotland still remain in this place, especially in the macro-economic sense. Does she agree that growth in the economy is key to helping small business; and, to help other Members to understand the situation, can she tell us what is the growth rate in the Scottish economy at the present time, and whether she thinks that it is adequate?

Patricia Hewitt: It is a great deal more than it would be if the nationalists were running Scotland.
	It is forecast that by the end of the decade the 3.7 million smaller businesses in our country today will have increased to more than 4.5 million. There will be nearly 1 million more of them, with 2 million new jobs between them. We celebrate our entrepreneurs, and no lectures are necessary from the Conservatives for us to understand that it is the Government's responsibility to help them to succeed.

Martin O'Neill: Before my right hon. Friend leaves the subject of science and technology, and the success of Galileo at Surrey university, will she share with us some of the thoughts about knowledge transfer that were exposed in the White Paper? If we are to persuade academia to respond in the same way as those in Guildford to the exciting opportunities provided by the search, we must ensure that much more emphasis is placed on the significance of knowledge transfer and the smoothing of the path from the research laboratory to the workshop and the business.

Patricia Hewitt: That is true. As we said in our White Paper, our country has a brilliant record of creating new ideas and new technology, but all too often we have left it to other countries and other people's businesses to commercialise them and create jobs and profits from them. We are starting to change that, and our huge investment in science over the past five yearswhich is in striking contrast to what happened during the Conservative yearsis already showing results. The number of spin-off companies has trebled, and the emphasis we are now placing on knowledge transfer will enable far more businesses to take advantage of our science departments.

Ian Gibson: Does my right hon. Friend share my pleasure at today's news that the Government have put 90 millionalong with, possibly, another 200 millioninto nanotechnology? That puts us in the top league in relation to an exciting new technology that will help medicine and other areas of work.

Patricia Hewitt: I am delighted that my hon. Friend mentioned that. Our investment in nanotechnology will ensure the provision of nanotechnology fabrication centres throughout the country, allowing small firms that could not possibly afford such facilities themselves to apply this extraordinary new technology to their products.
	First and foremost, however, Government must deliver economic stability to our businesses. That is precisely what we have delivered. The hon. Member for South Suffolk did not mention the Conservatives' record, but they delivered interest rates that rose to 15 per cent. and devastated entrepreneurs who lost their businesses, their savings and, all too often, their homes.

John Barrett: Will the Secretary of State listen to small businesses that are genuinely concerned about the amount of administrative time that they spend collecting tax on behalf of the Government? That is the main issue that they raise with me now, whereas they used to raise the high cost of borrowed money.

Patricia Hewitt: Of course we listen to them. Indeed, both the Chancellor and the Paymaster General have taken steps to simplify the system. We have already simplified VAT, which has helped a number of businesses.

Geraint Davies: Before my right hon. Friend moves on from macro-economics, may I ask whether she agrees that if we are to move from success to success we must instil the entrepreneurial culture in the education system? In the education action zone in New Addington in my constituency, business mentoring has proved successful: pupils have gained experience in work, and have learned how to manage their time, to run with ideas and to come up with products in a structured way. Would my right hon. Friend be interested in visiting Croydon at some point to observe the education-industry interface that is breeding entrepreneurial flair for the future?

Patricia Hewitt: I readily congratulate everyone involved in that initiative. It is an example of the excellent work that is being done in many parts of the country to build much closer relationships between business and industry and our schools. Indeed, as a result of the excellent report from Howard Davies on the subject, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills is ensuring that every secondary school student will have the opportunity of good work experience that gives them a taste of business.
	What we have delivered for our small businesses is the lowest inflation for 30 years, the lowest interest rates for 40 years and 1.5 million more people in employment. Having said that, it is difficult for our small businesses. It is difficult for every business at the moment with the world economic slowdown, but it is thanks to the decisions that we made on economic policy six years ago that our country continued to grow while others went into recession.

Claire Curtis-Thomas: Does my right hon. Friend agree that some of the 1.5 million people who have entered the workplace in the past few years were specifically excluded from the workplace under the previous Administration, including the vast majority of women, who could have provided an enormous contribution and, more important and more dear to my heart, people with disabilities? They were totally ignored under the previous Administration. They never had any hope of employment. They have been liberated into work under this Government.

Patricia Hewitt: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. She makes an extremely important point about how our action to tackle discrimination in the workplace is freeing people to take up new opportunities and making it easier for business people to recruit the staff they need. I add to her list the young people who were trapped in long-term unemployment during the Conservative years. We have virtually eliminated long-term youth unemployment.

Angela Browning: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Patricia Hewitt: If I may, I would like to make a little more progress before I give way again.
	The second responsibility we have in government is to ensure that small firms can get access to the funding they need. It was clear that we needed to deal with the equity gap in our country, which in striking contrast to the United States left small companies unable to grow through equity finance. We created regional venture capital fundsmore than 300 million of extra capital has been made available. We extended the small firms loan guarantee scheme, listening to small businesses that wanted that extended into sectors such as retail and leisure. Now we are looking at whether we should replicate the small business investment companies in the United States, which were so successful in helping Apple, Compaq, AOL and many others to grow from tiny start-ups into huge world beaters.
	The third responsibility is to ensure that we get the tax environment right. The hon. Member for South Suffolk spent some time on that. We already have the lowest small firms tax rate in Europe. This year's Budget contained a raft of further measures to help small firms.

David Burnside: In referring to the low tax rate, will the Secretary of State give a commitment on behalf of the Government that there will be no increase in taxation through another hike in the national insurance surcharge, which has been passed on to small firms? Can she give that commitment?

Patricia Hewitt: We have made it absolutely clear that the 1 per cent. increase in national insurance contributions that we have asked people to pay is needed to deliver the record levels of increased funding for the national health service. I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that, compared with the costs either of private medical insurance in the United States or social insurance in France, the 1 per cent. for the NHS that we have asked businesses, employees and the self-employed to pay is very small indeed. For a good health service, it is a bargain.

Angela Browning: Does the right hon. Lady recall the views of the Engineering Employers Federation at the time of the pre-Budget report last autumn? It pointed out that, in this financial year, an additional 6 billion of tax on business was due, equivalent to almost half the amount that business spends on research and development. It warned just before Christmas that that was affecting British competitiveness and driving investment abroad. That is what business is saying about the right hon. Lady's Government's taxation on business.

Patricia Hewitt: I am fairly certain that the figures that the hon. Lady quotes ignore the benefits that we are extending to business, particularly the research and development tax credit, which has been so warmly welcomed and which is supporting exactly the kind of investment that we need.

Claire Curtis-Thomas: It was with great interest that I listened to the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) lambast this Administration. Perhaps my right hon. Friend might like to be reminded of what the hon. Lady said on 19 November 1999:
	I say that after spending three years as a Minister under the previous Government, who tried to reduce regulation on business. We would be the first to say that we did not do very well.[Official Report, 19 November 1999; Vol. 339, c. 250.]
	It would be very nice to hear that reasserted today.

Patricia Hewitt: My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I shall come to the issue of regulation in a minute. Thanks to the reforms that we have introduced to the business tax system, 150,000 small businesses are no longer paying any corporation tax, and a third of a million have had their corporation tax cut. Today, the Conservatives have dismissed corporation tax as of no concern to small businesses, but it is of huge concern to the nearly 500,000 businesses for which we have cut, or completely abolished, corporation tax bills.

Adrian Flook: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. She will doubtless be aware of the case involving T.P. Madgett and R.M. Baldwin, concerning VAT, on which a UK court ruled in 1998. In a similar case, Berry's Coaches of Taunton want to recover 27,000 of VAT from three years ago, but Customs and Excise says that it is awaiting a ruling from Europe. Is it really fair that small businesses should have to wait quite so long to get their own money back?

Patricia Hewitt: I am happy to say that my responsibilities do not include VAT, but I shall draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General to the case that the hon. Gentleman mentions, and I should be grateful if he would send me further details on it.
	On corporation tax, I should point out that the company law review that we instigated and published last year is based on the whole philosophy of think small first. As we institute a complete rewriting of our company law framework, we will make it far easier for small businesses to become incorporated and to take advantage of the tax benefits that we have already extended to those smaller companies.
	Our fourth responsibility as a Government is to ensure that business gets the practical support that it needs. Last yearand in just one yearBritish Trade International helped 28,000 companies to export, many of which were new exporters that are now able to grow their businesses because of our help. I do not know whether the Conservatives would abolish that. Business Link, which was started by the Conservatives, was in a pretty pathetic state when we took over, and there were many complaints from customers. Now, it is helping nearly a third of a million businesses each year to start and grow. We have increased the number of Business Link customers and significantly increased customer satisfaction. Some 1,000 SMART awards, amounting to more than 40 million, will help other businesses in the way that Cooke Optics was helped. Perhaps the Conservatives plan to abolish that as well.
	We listen to our small business customers. They told us to simplify the business support schemes, many of which we inherited from earlier Administrations, and that is exactly what we are doing. They told us to bring together all the information and support available to small businessesnot just from the Department of Trade and Industry, but across government, in the regions and from local authorities as welland that is exactly what we are doing.
	Our fifth responsibility is, of course, to ensure that the regulatory framework is right and that markets are open and competitive.

Mark Prisk: Before the right hon. Lady leaves the subject of business advice and the Small Business Service, I should point out that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has advised me of a serious omission. I hope that the right hon. Lady can deal with this point, as the service is in fact accountable to her. Yesterday, this House discussed on Third Reading the issue of stamp duty land tax, which, according to a number of experts, will cost small businessesespecially retailers230 million. Yet the Chief Secretary has advised me that at no time during the legislative process and a year's consultation did the Small Business Service make written or oral representations. Is not that a neglect of its duties? Why did it not participate in that vital process?

Patricia Hewitt: I am not aware of that point, or of what my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary said about it. Let me check it, and I shall write to the hon. Gentleman.
	The Enterprise Act 2002 has transformed the competition regime that we inherited from the Conservativesit was, frankly, pretty mediocre by global standardsinto one of the best in the world. That is particularly important for start-ups and for small, growing companies, because it makes it easier for them to take on the big businesses and break into new markets. Of course we have to keep addressing the issue of regulation, but let us be clear about what the issue is, and distinguish between fair standards for people at work and the administrative costs of filling in forms on compliance and so on.
	Let us take the example of the national minimum wage. Of course it increased the wage bill for some businesses, but I make no apology whatever about that. I think that it was a disgrace that Britain, the fourth largest economy in the world, was paying its security guards 1.20 an hour. That was happening in my constituency and many others before 1997. However, we introduced the national minimum wage in a sensible way. We brought together employers, trade unions and other groups, and it was decided through that process of social partnership what the minimum wage should be. It was set at a level that ensured that people were not put out of work. I remember the scare stories from the Conservative party before 1997. We heard that the minimum wage was going to cost a minimum of a million jobs, but what have we done? We have delivered the national minimum wage and 1.5 million new jobs as well.
	Family-friendly working is another issue, and the Conservative spokesman complained about the legal package on that. Again, however, we sat down with the CBI, the TUC and small businesses, forming a taskforce through which we all worked together to devise a package on family-friendly working that would work for businesses as well as employees. The hon. Member for South Suffolk appears to have gone to sleep. He is clearly not getting family-friendly working hours, despite the modernisation of the House of Commons, which he probably opposed.
	We have also cut form filling and red tape for 700,000 small businesses through the flat-rate VAT scheme. We have got rid of automatic late penalties for VAT late payers. We have saved 150,000 businesses 180 million a year by raising the statutory audit threshold to 1 million, and before the summer recess, I shall be consulting on whether to raise the threshold even further.

Lembit �pik: I accept that some of the Secretary of State's achievements are laudable, significant and beneficial to society. However, is it not a problem that we are becoming a rules-based society, in which everything has to be assessed against specific rules? Naturally, the rules will be pretty extensive. Has the Secretary of State thought of moving closer to a guidelines-based system in which every single opportunity does not have to be predicted? There is probably more good faith in such a system, because although some people will always look for the loopholes, most are honourable. The United Kingdom could make do with a lot fewer rules if we had sensible guidelines.

Patricia Hewitt: I have great sympathy for the extremely interesting point that the hon. Gentleman makes. Much of our approach is based on promoting best practice, co-regulation and sometimes giving statutory backing to self-regulation. The new family-friendly package and the new legal standards on family-friendly working for parents are good examples of where we are creating a general legal framework without specifying in great detail what is right for every businesswhich is, of course, impossible.
	We have done a great deal to improve the regulatory system in our country and proof comes from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which says that we are at the forefront of regulatory reform right across the developed world. Indeed, a forthcoming survey of small businesses by one of our leading banks finds that the amount of time that businesses spend each month on filling in forms and other compliance duties has fallen in the past four years. Of course, we need to keep on doing better.
	I am not happy about the growth in employment tribunal cases. They represent a failure of the relationship between the employer and the employee. The Employment Relations Act 2002 will improve matters, because it will ensure that more disputes are resolved in the workplace, instead of going before a tribunal because the employer has no procedures and sacks someone without bothering to talk to them about what is wrong with their work. It will improve matters by devoting more resources to and placing greater emphasis on conciliation and by giving the tribunals much more effective powers to weed out the weak cases in advance. The Act will also ensure that if people abuse the systemwhether they are employers or employeescosts can be awarded against them.
	There is more to do, and if any hon. Member comes across an unnecessary form or an example of bureaucratic gobbledegook, I invite them to send it to me or to my hon. Friend the Minister for Small Business and Enterprise and we will deal with it. However, we should not run Britain down. We are the No. 1 destination for foreign direct investment into Europe and, according to the World Economic Forum, we have leapt from No. 7 in the world to No. 3 in international competitiveness. Indeed, as Digby Jones recently said:
	I would much rather be doing business in Britain than anywhere else in Europe.
	That reflects the Economist Intelligence Unit's findings and a series of benchmarking studies that consistently put us in the top three countries in the world for entrepreneurship and business.

John Bercow: I have already raised this issue with the Secretary of State on behalf of a constituent of mine from the beautiful hamlet of Singleborough. What assessment has the right hon. Lady made of the effect of the over-burdensome and prescriptive character of the Ofsted inspection process on the supply of mobile child care at conferences and other events? That is an important issue for my constituent.

Patricia Hewitt: The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue, and indeed I raised it in the cross-cutting review of child care that the Government published a few months ago. We have considered the issue, and I routinely raise the subject with child care businesses in my constituency. Both the work of the cross-cutting review and my own discussions with child care providers suggest that the problem is overstated. The hon. Gentleman may wish to write to me with details of the particular case that he raises, but the assertion that is often made does not seem to be borne out by the extensive inquiries that we have made.

Nigel Dodds: The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik) mentioned the large increases in business insurance premiums and their effects on small businesses. Figures for Northern Ireland show an increase in average business insurance premiums of 28 per cent. for 2001 and a swingeing 49 per cent. for 2002. What advice can the Secretary of State offer to my constituents who run small businesses and who tell me that if that continues, they will be driven out of business?

Patricia Hewitt: The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, because all around the country small businesses are suffering from increases in insurance premiums. He will be aware of the report that my hon. Friend the Minister for Work recently published on that very subject. The problem lies in the insurance market and the steep fall in stock marketsnot only in Britain, but across the worldthat makes it impossible for insurance companies to continue to cut premiums and rely on investments. That option is no longer available. Add to that some very big risks and the failure of at least one major insurance company that was big in that market, and you end up with an enormous problem. However, the Government cannot wave a magic wand over the insurance market to deal with those problems. We have worked with the industry to ensure that no small business is left without insurance, a problem that was threatening to happen last year. I think that we have largely dealt with that, and we are now looking to get much more information about why companies are raising premiums as much as they are. We will then see whether we should insist on a longer notice period for renewal of the premiums, so that businesses can shop around more effectively. It is a very serious problem, and we are working with small businesses and the insurance industry to resolve it.
	I shall end by saying that, although it is wonderful to see so many small businesses starting up and growing, we still have much more to do to extend to everyone, in every community in every part of our country, the opportunity to start and grow a business. The start-up rate in our poorest regions is only one sixth of what it is in the most prosperous parts of the country. In the north-east, gross domestic product per head is only half what it is in London, and business research and development is only one tenth of what it is in the south-east.

Peter Duncan: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Patricia Hewitt: No, I want to make progress. In the north-east and other regions where business start-up rates are low, we need to ensure that we increase our efforts to support potential entrepreneurs and ensure that they get the help that they need to help grow businesses that will generate wealth in their regions.
	We also need to reflect on the fact that the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor has found that we do better than many other developed countries in terms of our start-up rate[Interruption.] I do not know what I have done to attract this fly. It is obviously very pleased with something that I have done.

Peter Duncan: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Patricia Hewitt: No. I am conscious that other hon. Members want to speak and I want to make progress.
	Although we compare well with most other developed countries in terms of our business start-up rates generallyand the rates have improved under Labourwe do not do well when it comes to entrepreneurship among women. If women were able to start businesses at the same rateif they were able to find it as easy to get funded as menwe would have an additional 100,000 new businesses every year. The same applies to some of our minority communities. For example, start-up rates in the Afro-Caribbean community remain low. Too many of our minority entrepreneurs still find that they cannot get the finance that they need, on the terms that they need.
	We have business links and the learning and skills councils working much more closely with the regional development agencies to strengthen the economic development strategies in their regions. We are working with organisations such as Prowess, the women's entrepreneurship support network, to ensure that the potential women entrepreneurs all over the country get the opportunity that they deserve.
	Much has been done, but much is still left to do. However, we must not understate the achievements of this Government. Above all, we must not run down our great British business. I am proud of the 2.5 million new businesses that have started in Britain since 1997. I am proud of the 107,000 new businesses that started in the first quarter of this yearup 12 per cent. on the same period last year, despite the economic downturn. I am proud of the fact that we have the best survival rates, economic environment and regulatory framework for small businesses.
	We in this House should be proud of our small businesses. We should celebrate the work being done by the Government and the public sector in partnership with the private sector to support those entrepreneurs, and I commend the amendment to the House.

DEFERRED DIVISIONS

Madam Deputy Speaker: I now have to announce the results of the Divisions deferred from a previous day.
	On the motion on Defence, the Ayes were 432, the Noes were nil, so the motion was agreed to.
	On the motion on Immigration, the Ayes were 265, the Noes were 164, so the motion was agreed to.
	[The Division Lists are published at the end of today's debates.]

Small Businesses

Question again proposed.

Brian Cotter: I very much agree with the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo), who is rushing out of the Chamber, that there is a need for this debate. I am glad that the Secretary of State is here to listen to it, as a commitment was given some years ago that there would be an annual debate on small business; I hope that we can reinstate that in the future.
	I declare an interest, which is in the register, as managing director of a small businessa manufacturing company.
	One of the strongest calls from small businesses is that Government and politicians should get off their back. They want a business-friendly environment so that they can get on with the job. As managing director of a company, I certainly support that.

Peter Duncan: I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman now espouses a policy of getting off the back of business. Can he justify his party's position in Edinburgh, where as part of the coalition it is imposing a 9 per cent. surcharge on business rates for businesses in Scotland?

Brian Cotter: I am not aware of that particular policy in the devolved area, although I am aware of policies in Scotland that are extremely beneficial for business. Lacking the knowledge to pursue it, that is all I have to say on the subject, but I shall happily look into at another date.
	The Secretary of State will recognise that the backdrop for business is the economy. Yes, the Government have brought stability to the economy and, to date, we have got away from the boom and bust that we experienced under the Conservatives. However, there are great concerns at present. For example, the high value of the pound causes problems for the manufacturing sector. As managing director of a manufacturing company, I very much share those concerns and can speak with personal knowledge of the cable industry, which has suffered badly from the high value of the pound. I have been in business for about 40 years and I have never known a time when so many products in that category were being imported. That is now an established fact owing to the high value of the pound and our economic climate.

John Bercow: Given that the hon. Gentleman laments the impact of the exchange rate on business competitiveness, will he clear up a little point of uncertainty? Is it the stance of the Liberal Democrats that Britain should enter the euro at ERM mid rates?

Brian Cotter: I do not want to be diverted to that subject, although I should be happy to spend longer talking about it[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman knows that we have a clear policy on euro entry. The matter relates to the high value of the pound; euro entry should have been looked into four years ago and we should now be advanced in our thinking. The rate will be addressed at the time. I shall proceed with my speech, as other Members want to speak.
	It is worrying to learn from figures published by the Centre for Business Research at Cambridge university that business failures have trebled since 1999. By any standards, that is of great concern. Furthermore, Dun and Bradstreet show insolvency figures as at their highest for eight years. There are worrying signs in the economic backdrop and they have a strong impact on business.
	On top of all that, the UK scores badly in terms of entrepreneurial activity. In the UK, 8 per cent. of the population are currently engaged in business start-ups, whereas the figure is 16 per cent. in Australia and New Zealand, and 12 per cent. in the United States. Obviously, the Secretary of State is aware of that issue, but she must share my concern.
	I will not repeat the arguments about insurance that have been made this afternoon, because the Secretary of State will know that I have made them before. I have tabled an early-day motion on the issue, and I have done a lot of work in meeting the insurance companies, as well as other businesses. I will simply say that the Secretary of State said a moment ago that the problem lies in the insurance market, but the problem does not end there, as that implies that the Government are absolving themselves of responsibility.
	The Department for Work and Pensions eagerly awaited review was published in April, but it was a grave disappointment because it simply rehearsed the problems and spoke about the Government returning to the issue in the autumn. I find that very unsatisfactory, as do businesses, and the Government need to engage in the issue now. Far from businesses being helped to meet their insurance premiums, to which the Secretary of State referred a moment ago, I have an example of a business that has had to pay 40 per cent. extra this year, and it says that it will go out of business if there is any increase next year. So I alert the Secretary of State to the fact that that issue has not been dealt with, and we expect it to be dealt with sooner than the autumn.
	The Government must address other issues, such as business rates. The Government's proposed rate relief scheme will help small businesses to an extent, but only a few of them. The Local Government Bill will set the rate relief threshold at 8,000 of rateable value, so an enormous number of small businesses in England will have no relief at all. The Liberal Democrats' scheme is much more positive: businesses with a rateable value below 25,000 would be given an immediate relief, which would be funded by the biggest companies paying an extra amount. Our scheme would reach between 80 to 85 per cent. of small businesses in the country, so I urge the Government to look again at their scheme, which is only part of the answer to a very big problem.
	The Secretary of State is aware that the small business community is concerned by a lot of issues, not the least of which relates to pharmacies. The Office of Fair Trading report has been promised shortly, in the next few days, and I hope that the Secretary of State will respond. She has said that she acknowledges the problem, but it is very worrying that she continues to say that competition must be brought into the industry. Many people are uncertain about whether she will respect the fact that pharmacies are part of the health service, that they are small businesses and that they need to be given the opportunity to survive and expand.
	A number of issues remain to be dealt with in relation to regulation and red tape, and I wish to make a general comment on the temporary agency workers directive and the working time directive. We need to ensure better consultation when addressing such issues, because businesses are entitled to propose constructive and clear points of concern. The impression given sometimes is that the Government just say, These rules have been agreed and are being implemented despite what they will do to hit business. In the hope that the Minister espouses the idea that small businesses are the vital engine of the economy, we must hope that the Government will address both the temporary agency workers directive and the working time directive.
	The Government have spoken frequently about the need for joined-up government, and I want to refer to one issue for the Secretary of State's attention. Currently, under the planning legislation going through the House, an issue is raisedit seems very small but it is notin relation to planning applications and the addition of mezzanine floors to supermarkets, with which I am sure she will be familiar. The Asda Group has identified 40 supermarkets throughout the country that can be adapted in that way. The concern, which I hope she will pass on to her colleagues, is that that can be done without any fresh planning application. Many reports on the issue of small shops and businesses have indicated that large supermarkets are taking more and more of their business away. If there has to be a planning application, that can be monitored, but if not, local shopping centres can suffer badly. In terms of joined-up government, I therefore hope that the Secretary of State will raise that issue with the appropriate Departments.
	Red tape is continually raised as an issue for business, and I agree, with my background in manufacturing, that it is a severe problem. A short while ago, the Secretary of State said that it would be useful to her if people who had examples of red tape or burdens on business brought them to her attention. I want to draw her attention to the experience of a small business in Stockport called Trolex Sensors, which pointed out in a letter that, under existing regulations, it and many other firms must comply with a whole list of requirements. Under the Statistics of Trade Act 1947, they are required to fill in the following: a quarterly capital expenditure inquiry, an annual business inquiry parts 1 and 2, a monthly wages and salaries survey, a quarterly stocks inquiry, an annual survey of research and development, an annual register inquiry, an annual inquiry into international trade in services, an annual/quarterly production inquiry, and a sales quarterly inquiry. The Government must justify that list alone. Is it necessary for firms to be burdened with such a list of requirements? In addition, in the case of the company concerned, when it said it had had enough, and refrained from filling in the forms, it was told that it would be referred to an enforcement squad, which I presume would rush inwhat action it would take I do not knowand require it to fill out all those forms. I hope that the Secretary of State will take on board the concerns of those of us in manufacturing and business in that regard.
	I hope that the Secretary of State will bear in mindit has been alluded to alreadythe fact that, in terms of regulation, there can be two solutions. First, sunset regulations can be used more and more in relation to business to ensure that such regulations drop away without renewal. Secondly, and most importantly, the Government can ensurethis did not happen under the previous Government, and still does not happen under this Governmentthat impact assessments are meaningful, accurate and clear, both in the early stages of regulation and when Bills are considered in Committee and on the Floor of the House. I urge the Secretary of State, as I have in the past, to consider introducing an independent system like Actal in the Netherlands, so that regulations could be assessed independently and efficiently from a detached viewpoint. Much as it might seem acceptable for departmental officials to do the work, there would be nothing better than having an independent organisation to examine regulations and ensure that impact assessments are done.
	Much work has been done on regulatory impact assessments. The British Chambers of Commerce says:
	RIAs did not lead to any regulations being removed from the statute book
	of course, that is true. However, the real issue that it mentions is:
	The quantification of costs and benefits of regulations is also patchy leading to the possibility of these estimates being used to promote
	regulations rather than alerting people to the problems associated with them. It adds:
	Costs and benefits for business were quantified in 69 per cent. and 20 per cent. of RIAs.
	The British Chambers of Commerce accepts the benefit of impact assessments, but the work is not being done sufficiently rigorously.
	I shall press on to other matters relating to red tape. Will the Secretary of State address such issues as health and safety? It is laudable that this country has good health and safety regulations, although most hon. Members would agree that some are a little over the top and others should be further enforced. However, understanding all the different health and safety regulations is one of the biggest problems faced by business. The Secretary of State might recall that I said that Liberal Democrats want a single inspectorate operating with a light touch, rather than the plethora of different inspectors who visit businesses to acquaint them with the different regulations. The ministerial response to my suggestion was to ask how a single inspector could possibly understand all the regulations and give advice on them. However, businesses themselves are supposed to understand all the regulations. I hope that the Secretary of State will take on board the need to re-examine the inspection procedure and consider whether the Small Business Service could institute a service so that firms would be given a better understanding of what they must achieve.
	I read many reports on the Small Business Service. Liberal Democrats worked on the service when it was first proposed, but I am disappointed that it is not as we envisaged. When I visited the Department of Trade and Industry to meet Ministers, I was somewhat disconcerted to learnperhaps I should have knownthat the service was based in an office down the corridor. Our understanding was that the Small Business Service would be rigorous, independent, robust and detached from the Government. We thought that it would have a critical frame of mind and more connection with business than the Government. Notwithstanding the difficulties that the Government faced while getting the service up and running properly, I am gravely worried that it is too much under their control.
	We need to reduce the burden on business and increase the possibility for business to influence the Government and to know exactly what is in the arena for business. That is why Liberal Democrats want decentralisation to be stepped up and more work to be done through regional government, in due course, and regional development agencies. I am worried about the make-up of several RDAs. Although they want to be representative of business, they should have a democratic aspect so that they are representative of the electorate. The RDAs are reasonably effective in some areas, but not at all in others. I urge the Minister to consider the structures associated with the RDAs to ensure that business is properly represented. A new organisation, Business West, has been established in my part of the country. It combines the chambers of commerce in an endeavour to influence the RDA locally. We need to help business organisations to influence the Government effectively.
	There is still a problem of red tape. In February 2002, the Government promised 250 measures to reduce the burden placed on business. I asked what progress was being made, and for a description of them. The problem with Governments is that some of the things they do sound goodthey are doing this, that and the otherbut there is no clear answer to what is going on beneath the surface. Despite asking for details of those 250 measures, I was given only two or three examples. In her response, the Paymaster General also said:
	In Budget 2003, the Chancellor announced that the Government had identified over 500 . . . regulatory measures[Official Report, 19 May 2003; Vol. 405, c. 574W.]
	Those included 250 to do with business. Perhaps the Secretary of State can help me to get the details of those measures. If they do exist, can they be implemented soon? They are part of a scheme that the Government introduced to deregulate business and to reduce the burdens on it.
	I welcome the debate. I hope that the Government ensure that we have such a debate every year and that there is an annual report on the impact of regulations on small business. Liberal Democrats have called for that for a long time. I cannot understand why that request should not be granted. Every year we should re-assess how regulations have affected business. A system of sunset clauses would enable us to abandon regulations that are not helping anyone. Again, I express concern about the latest figures on insolvency, which is three times the 1999 level. The Secretary of State must be worried that the signs for the economy and small business do not look good. I hope that we hear more about that.

John Battle: I, too, welcome the debate, especially the words in the amendment that acknowledge the crucial role of small businesses. The Secretary of State amplified that in her comments. The amendment also contains the phrase:
	applauds the Government for improving access to finance for small . . . businesses.
	I want to explore that access to finance in the context of what my right hon. Friend said about start-up rates in poorer neighbourhoods and the need to increase small business activity among women and ethnic minorities, and in communities that still have high unemployment.
	Perhaps it will help if I say a little about the small business characteristics of my constituency. My approach is not to focus on the macro-figures, but to see how the micro-economy matches up to those macro-figures. I want to look at recent Government initiatives, such as community interest companies, and explore new ideas for supporting small businesses which could radically decentralise the provision of services and goods and start to build a local, sustainable economy, even in inner-city neighbourhoods.
	To give the House a snapshot of my constituency, I can describe it as a series of tightly knit urban villages. Armley, Wortley, Bramley, Stanningley, Farnley, Burley and Kirkstall see themselves not as Leeds, but as having their own identities. My constituency forms a wedge, like a pizza slice, from the business area of the city centre out to the south-west. The problem is that the people who live in that wedge have always had problems getting into Leeds because it is south of the River Aire, the canal and the railway, and there are only three points at which one can cross the canal and the river. We have what the planners now call geophysical barriers.
	In practice, my constituency has been cut off from the city centre and, as a result, in the 20th century it developed as a semi-autonomous region within the city. It was characterised by small family businesses, mostly with fewer than 20 people, engaged, in particular, in engineering, printing, textiles and distribution. Those firms were located on industrial sites with street fronts clustered around those urban villages, so local people grew up and went to work in a family firm nearby.
	Some of those firms are still with us. They include Pennine Castings, Browns of Bramley, which is a fourth-generation suit-making firm, and Aagard Hanley's, a quality plastering business. F.J. Rogers, which makes organ pipes and sells them worldwide, has been there since 1897. There are new small businesses in the new technologies, such as Northern Instruments, which makes industrial thermometers, and MEI, a medical industrial engineering company, and there are new restaurants, including the brilliant, award-winning organic Millrace. By and large, however, there has not been a small business renaissance in the neighbourhood.
	As a result, the challenge that we face is that, although the Leeds economy as a whole has been renewed and reinvigorated, and companies that work in the new technologies and the finance and service sectors have replaced larger, traditional manufacturing companies, there has not been a great expansion in local, family businesses in Leeds, West in the last 10 years. That means that there is now higher than average unemployment. More important, however, is the lack of aspiration and the loss of the skills involved in setting up a small business that used to be passed on through the family.
	The challenge is to revive that tradition, to reignite the entrepreneurial spark to rebuild our economy locally, rather than to hope for salvation from one major investment in central Leeds. As the detailed ongoing surveys in the Life in Leeds features in the Yorkshire Evening Post have illustrated, we cannot all easily travel into the centre of Leeds and cash in on the booming sector of the economy. In addition, call centres in Leeds will not provide high levels of employment for ever. The voice recognition chip will displace many call centre jobs in the next 10 years.
	What can we do to develop the momentum behind a vibrant local economy and build economies in those urban villages from the ground up? Can we revive the tradition of the small family business? We have resources, and we spend and invest money, but as the New Economics Foundation has argued, we suffer leakages of our money because it goes elsewhereit is spent and invested outside our neighbourhood. The foundation's paper Ghost Town Britain: The threat from economic globalisation to livelihoods, liberty and local economic freedom argued that we are in danger if local economies decline, reducing our neighbourhoods to ghost towns. I therefore welcome the Government's consultation paper, which was published in March and invited responses to proposals on community interest companies by the middle of June. In a remarkable piece of integrated government, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the Home Secretary and the Chancellor launched the paper, which was entitled Enterprise for Communities: Proposals for a Community Interest Company. It builds on both the DTI's work on social enterprise and work in the Prime Minister's strategy unit on private action and public benefit, and floats the idea of a new type of company, which I should like to explore.
	The document suggests that community interest companies should be set up to pursue local economic objectives, regenerate poorer areas, empower local communities and introduce innovative local services. Not only are community interest companies a means for raising capital for the public good locally but their assets such as building and land are dedicated to that good. It is suggested that those new companies could invest in community transport, fair trade, child care provision, leisure and social housing. They could make the delivery of local services more dynamic and focused on the needs of local communities and provide new opportunities for new forms of partnership, both public and private.
	We need new social enterprises. The Government have set up the Phoenix fund, and there are community development finance institutions and community investment tax relief, but they need to be pulled together under a local neighbourhood banner if there is to be any sustained local economic development. We should develop local economic communities, clustered around a few streets in those small urban villages. Perhaps community investment companies could provide that overarching umbrella. They could pull initiatives together and form a new framework for new positive partnerships with local government. They could experiment by building up capacity and developing sustainable businesses at the local level.
	May I make a few suggestions? We should take a radical look at local service provision, including care of the elderly, the sick and children in our neighbourhoods. Why should meals on wheels, cooked centrally and chill-frozen, be brought into our neighbourhood from somewhere miles away? Could we not use the cooking skills of someone in our own street to provide those meals and save transport costs? Can we not provide more local child care and after-school care, perhaps in a neighbour's home? We could provide proper training and pay people to do work in the neighbourhood that they live in, thus radically decentralising statutory provision. Similarly, we could look at recycling projects and the management of waste facilities.
	We could do much more locally and look, for example, at local shared transport schemes in the neighbourhood. Why can we not get the steel shutters off boarded-up shops and reintroduce new locally owned community shops, such as health food and healthy living shops, providing goods and services for the local community on the doorstep? We should look again at security and insurance. Instead of every household taking out individual insurance, why not develop community insurance schemes, which would not only reduce premiums and organise the collection of pooled payments but release capital for local investment in neighbourhood safety and care schemes? We could even invest in local broadband schemes as a new security tool. We should look at radically reshaping investment and fund local services to meet local needs. We should pull together assets and resources so that they are focused much more on the locality. Community interest companies could be used as a catalyst for that.
	In conclusion, I urge the Department to consider how those ideas can be translated into practice. It could set up a unit, and consider in detail the way in which pilot schemes could pull such initiatives together. My constituency offers fertile soil for small business development, of which we should take advantage. Enterprise for Communities states:
	The promotion of enterprise, in every part of society and every corner of our country, is at the heart of Government's agenda. Entrepreneurial talent is essential to deliver social justice, locally and nationally.
	I agree, but we need integrated action to try that out in practice. It can be done, but we need to demonstrate that.

Archie Norman: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) not only because he made a thoughtful and constructive speech, but because he referred to an area south of the River Aire in Leeds to which I hope I made some minor contribution, though perhaps not in a small business capacity.
	I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests, which does not relate directly to small businesses, but which is relevant, none the less.
	The Secretary of State made a glossily optimistic speech. I understand why she did so and why she wants to portray the state of small business in an optimistic light, but it was totally unreflective of the opinion of small business organisations, such as the Federation of Small Businesses, and of the Institute of Directors. If small business people read her speech, the effect will be to emphasise the gulf that exists between the political and Government world and the business world. It is a gulf of culture and understanding, which is becoming increasingly serious.
	I shall concentrate my remarks on regulation, an issue that is misunderstood by Governments of both complexions. It is viewed as an issue of individual regulations, the deregulation taskforce and so on, but the problem is much more profound. It is a chronic problem, owing to the nature of government in this countrythe fact that we have a Government who systemically add to the regulatory burden, because of the nature of our political system. Few Ministers get promoted for other than adding to the statute book. It is not glamorous to withdraw legislation or introduce light-touch legislation. It is glamorous to appease some lobby group and bring in new regulations. Also, we have the additional burden of European regulation, which is introduced and enforced, often against the wishes of Governments and parties of any complexion, in a form that lacks proper regulatory scrutiny in the House.
	Regulation is a chronic problem that requires systemic solutions, and unless we address ourselves to that, nothing much will happen. The difficulty has affected successive Governments, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) was quoted as acknowledging. The regulatory burden grew under the last Conservative Government as well, but it has accelerated dramatically under the Labour Government. Under all Governments over the past 10 years, we have spoken of deregulation, better regulation taskforces and the deregulation taskforce, on which I served, but all those measures are like standing in the way of an avalanche armed with a toothpick.
	It is no good trying to find a bit of regulation that one can liberalise or remove from the statute book. That will not help, because the volume of incremental regulation far outweighs anything that can be removed, and what is removed tends to be innocuous detail, whereas what is imposed is substantive and cost-additive. It is worth bearing in mind the quantum of what has happened over the past five years. I am not making a partisan point; there is a serious problem affecting our competitiveness.
	In the recent IOD survey, 84 per cent. of small businesses stated that the payroll burden on them had increased significantly, and 93 per cent. said that the burden of employment law had increased significantly in the past five years. There have been 19,332 new regulations in the past five years. Whether that figure is exactly right I do not know, but the number has been substantial. The estimated cost, according to a firm of lawyers, Penninsula, is 21 billion over the course of five or six years. However one estimates it, the cost is considerable. In the past five years the rate of introduction of new regulation on business has been 53 per cent. up on the previous five years, which is substantial. The impact on business is progressive and cumulative. The effect is to reduce the gene pool of new start-ups and small businesses. That is not in anyone's interest. The 2002 figures for the small business population are not available, but the DTI statistics for 1995 to 2001 show that the population of businesses in this country was stagnant at about 3.7 million. That means that there was also no increase in our capacity to generate innovation and growth. The one thing that we know about 2002 is that there has been a significant acceleration in the mortality rate of small businesses, as some 16,000 went out of businessthe highest level since 1994. That is partly due to the general economy, but it is also due to the impact of regulation.
	We also know that the fastest growing part of the economy today is the public sector and public sector expenditure. What does the Minister think is the impact of public sector investment on the small business community? Public sector procurement is very small business-unfriendly. The amount of red tape, including all the ISO 9000s and other qualifications that businesses have to complete to supply to the public sector, is a major deterrent. Typically, the public sector is very risk-averse in its procurement. As a result, it tends to reinforce the competitive power of big business, not small business. The DTI could do a great deal to improve that situation.
	The hon. Member for Leeds, West also referred to call centres. I was looking the other day at the statistics on call centre competitiveness worldwide. We now have among the most expensive call centres in the world. We may think that that is based on a comparison with India; indeed, our costs are three times those in India. However, this country now operates call centres at a higher cost than the United States and Canada. That is substantially because they are employment-intensive services. This country has imposed employment costs and rigidity on a peaking and troughing type of business. As a result, we are now completely uncompetitive. The consequence relates not only to cost. It is important to recognise, although we now have regulatory impact assessments and so on, that the consequence of regulation for business is profound, as it affects the culture of entrepreneurship, the attitude to innovation and the pace of change. It is in that regard that the competitive damage is especially serious.
	Of course, we think that each regulation is individually warranted and defensible. The Secretary of State referred to family-friendly working practices, which are difficult to argue against and which most business people favour. However, the cumulative impact is to make our businesses more sclerotic. Although I favour family-friendly working practices and can see that there is a strong case for them, I point out that that is not what they are doing in South Korea. The consequence is that, in each instance, we must ask ourselves how we will compare with the new overseas competition and what the regulation will do to future profitability, investment and employment. That is what will determine whether people have rewarding careers and jobs. It is a question of whether we are competitive, not what legislation we have.
	The first thing to recognise about regulation is that it almost invariably reinforces economies of scale. Big business can afford whatever regulation is imposed. When I was running Asda, we reckoned that, to introduce a new Asda brand own-label product on the shelves, we had to go through 17 different items of legislation. I had a department to do that work, but a small shopkeeper or someone with a little chain of shops would not have had a prayer in respect of the administrative, legal and other support required. The net result is that we could introduce own-label products at a lower price for our customers, but the small retailer could not.
	That is an illustration of how all regulation, however well meaning, and including food labelling and so on, will reinforce the role of the established larger company and limit the capacity of the little guy to compete. The same is true in relation to health and safety, fire and building regulations, on which companies can employ any number of experts, whereas the little business would have to employ some expensive lawyer from outside and simply cannot afford to do so.

Hugo Swire: I am very interested in my hon. Friend's remarks. Is he not saying that larger businesses can, on the whole, offload and absorb some of those costs, but smaller businesses have only a small number of optionsfirst, to make people redundant, secondly, to go bankrupt and, thirdly, to pass on the increased costs to the consumer?

Archie Norman: That reinforces my point; my hon. Friend puts it succinctly.
	Regulation not only affects economies of scale but slows the pace of innovation. It means that it is much harder to introduce new products in line with other countries and that it is much harder to produce technical innovation. We have such a backlogan archaeologyof legislation on the statute book that a lot of it is of absolutely no relevance today, but rather slows the pace of change. For example, the prescribed quantities legislation that was introduced in the 1920s still limits the size and weight of goods that can be sold. Products such as flaked cereals, ground coffee, and even bottles of wine can be sold only in certain sizes. One is not allowed to sell loaves of bread other than in weights of 600 g and 1,200 g, so it is illegal to sell a 900 g loaf of bread. I know that because at Asda we once wanted to sell 900 g loaves, so we had the great idea of selling 600 g with 300 g free. Then, of course, the trading standards officers prosecuted us. I make the point in a humorous vein, but it illustrates the fact that such regulation slows the pace of innovation and change and erodes the entrepreneurial culture, and it all has a ratchet effect. Our problem is that we lay legislation on legislation, and it all goes back a very long wayso far back that, for instance, all small shopkeepers who want to sell a pheasant have to have a game licence. That presumably relates back to something to do with poaching in the last century or the century before that, but it is completely irrelevant today and it should go. The trouble is that it is on nobody's priority list to make it go.
	It is a question not only of the legislation on the statute book but of enforcement. In this country we are world-beaters when it comes to enforcement. We employ armies of enforcers who are expert in making sure that little businesses either go out of business or adding to their costs. As a result, we have very high standards. Although that is entirely desirable, we often enforce the means, not the ends. I can go into any supermarket or food shop in Holland or France and within five minutes find things that would be illegal in this country. That is not because they are selling unsafe food, but because of the way in which we enforce our regulations.
	The situation is getting a lot worse; it has accelerated over the past five years. Even now, legislation is reaching the statute book that will be very damaging in accumulation. We need an approach to regulation that is systemically differentnot just picking away, but a profoundly new approach. As the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Brian Cotter) said, it must be based on proper regulatory impact assessments. In some cases, regulatory impact assessments are a complete disgrace; they must be externally audited so that we know that they are objective. We also need sunset clauses; a limit on the cost of form-filling and bureaucracy that the Government are entitled to impose on business without compensation; the ability to appeal against excessive and life-threatening enforcement; removal of the archaeology in the shape of a mechanism for sweeping away the outdated legislation that is no longer relevant; and proper scrutiny of European legislationnot just the legislation itself, but the way in which it will be enforced in this country.
	I make these points not in a partisan way but because I feel that the Secretary of State's speech missed the point. We have a growing problem in this country: a decline in the competitiveness of small businesses and the rate of innovation. That must be tackled in a profound way to provide systemic solutions to a chronic problem.

Ian Gibson: I have a different tale to tell. As I wing my way through East Anglia and, indeed, the rest of the country and other parts of the world, visiting not only science-based small businesses but other small businesses, I can sense that the entrepreneurial spirit is alive. It is a time for small business to get excited and to expand. It is recognised that by the end of this decade some 2 million jobs will be created in the sector in areas such as biofuels, which are prominent and growing in small businesses in East Anglia, biotechnologies and nanotechnologies. Carbon and energy production will be another growing area. Through business links, the Government have interacted with about half a million small businessestwice as many as two years ago. Seven policy strategies, which I have no time to describe, have been published and are being enacted.
	Innovation is the key for science-based small businesses. We should concentrate on helping them not just to start and survive, but to innovate and grow. In a recent report on energy and an earlier one on engineering and physical sciences, the Select Committee on Science and Technology examined emerging engineering and physical science research by universities involving industry and its interaction with universities. Development of such knowledge to create a well-designed product that meets a market need gives rise to problems. Bringing about a conjunction of technology with market assessment is almost exclusively the job of industry, and is far more expensive and risky than research. All the evidence suggests that that part of the innovation process is seriously underfunded, and is not provided adequately in engineering and physical science-based companies. Market research and the provision of demonstrators of the final product are recognised as being critical to innovative success. Support for small businesses in particular is vital at that crucial stage.
	Let me say something about spin-out companies, which can be seen in clusters. In research parks all over the country, innovative and entrepreneurial skills are developing. A new spirit is alive in the land. A higher education-business interaction survey showed a 22 per cent. increase on the previous year in the creation of spin-outs, with 248 graduate start-up companies and 69 staff start-ups. The number of staff in the higher education institutions' commercialisation offices had increased to 1,500 from a very low base. We may still be a bit behind the United States in terms of product development, but the Department of Trade and Industry's chief economic adviser on science tells me that in the past year there have been more spin-out companies.
	Some problems are ascribed to red tape, but not the red tape that Conservative Members have described. It is when universities become active in the field of innovation that things begin to happen. The number of bright young people who are trained to use their brains for marketing purposes and to interact with industry, and who are excited by the prospect, is growing almost daily. In Leeds as elsewhere, new companies are beginning to spark and to develop. The White Paper deals with that.

Martin O'Neill: I raised this point earlier, but my hon. Friend is going into more detail. British universities are variable in terms of knowledge transfer. This may seem slightly regulatory, but might it not be valuable to apply it more consistently, and to allow more liaison between individuals who are responsible for it? Alternatively, universities could be grouped, geographically or according to discipline, so that they could work to common standards to achieve a critical mass that would facilitate knowledge transfer.

Ian Gibson: I entirely agreeregional interaction between universities through regional development agencies is a whole new unexplored territory.

Kerry Pollard: A recent survey by the Royal Bank of Scotland suggested that the eastern region, which my hon. Friend and I both represent, was the only region that was growing rapidly. Is that not due to the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit in our small business sector?

Ian Gibson: Indeed. In our region, it is not all about Cambridge university; it is about Cranfield

Kerry Pollard: Hertfordshire?

Ian Gibson: Yes, and all the other new universities that are coming onstream and interacting. The higher education White Paper is not just about tuition fees and top-up fees; it is about the interaction between academia and industry. Richard Lambert, ex-editor of the Financial Times, is charged with feeding that White Paper with information from the study that he is carrying out. The work that he has released so far suggests that the position is not as bad as we think. We tend to think that academics are closeted in their ivory towers, but he says that there are signs of that interaction beginning to emerge. There is much more to do, but we can see the signs of that happening. The report will be extremely important.
	Universities that have high research ratings seem to have the largest number of spin-out companies, so there is a correlation between research, function and good teaching, producing bright young brains to engage not just in further academic research but in the industrial exploitation of those ideas. We must welcome that.
	To me, chemistry has always been the most boring subject in the worlddull people, always drunk on Friday and Saturday nights. The students never did much, but the Royal Society of Chemistry has published a report. Three groups were asked to complete a spin-out questionnaire: university technology transfer officers, heads of chemistry departments, and individuals involved in spin-outs. Twenty-nine UK chemistry departments have been involved in 65 spin-out companies in the past few years. What does the Royal Society say are the inhibitory factors? It is not red tape.

Kerry Pollard: Does my hon. Friend accept that we need to support not just the big scientific research but small research, which also has spin-outs? I am thinking in particular of small business research at Kingston university.

Ian Gibson: I agree. The other night, I was at the Institution of Chemical Engineers prize-giving ceremony at Alexandra palace. An amazing number of small businesses were vying for simple little prizes, but there was great excitement. It was hard to distinguish between all the enterprising projects in the oil and engineering industries.
	The Royal Society report discovered after the discussions with all the groups I have mentioned that the major factor was encouragement and funding from the university, making spin-out activity a priority in the university. The White Paper on higher education will look at that as well. Another factor was support from the head of the department, saying This is what we are going to do. That galvanises activity, enthuses the people in the department to take their ideas forward and makes the spin-out company possible.
	Another factor was flexible working arrangements, so that the academic with the idea could get support and help, and get on with the business of moving the project into industry. The Royal Society said that those factors made it successful. One must have success and role models in the department, the university and the region. That is beginning to work. Another factor was mentors from industry to guide people in the department so that they could move their research forward.
	Of course, there is pressure on those people, too: the research exercise. They must still be distinguished academics. They must keep research in the top flight. They must get research grants. If there is one red tape problem, it is filling in the forms to get money from Europe and elsewhere. Academics are good at filling in their expense formsthere are no problems therebut when it comes to filling in research grant forms from Europe, they have great problems and it drives them insane. They sometimes complain about the journey from the car park to the university being too long, but that is just a fringe activity in terms of what is happening and the entrepreneurial skills.
	Formal training is going on with young people, and the higher education White Paper will develop that. It will move things forward at a great rate. The Government's incentives and interactions with banks are helping spin-out companies and making them work togetherthere are spin-out companies across the land.
	I do not want one spin-out company in the part of the world that my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Pollard) represents. I want 50, fighting for the same space, talking to each other, drinking coffee together, coming up with sparky ideas. We have not touched the enthusiasm and intelligence of this country in that area yet, so I look forward in the next year to more spin-out companies. I want to see the Americans coming over here from California because we are good at it.
	One thing may be important, and my hon. Friend the Minister may want to say something about itI would welcome it if he did. We may need regulations on intellectual property. Who owns the patents? Should it be the university or the person who makes the discovery? What about the business that expands it? How does one develop that kind of relationship? That is a real issue. In the United States, the Bayh-Dole Act 1980 helped to solve that issue. It drove on US technology transfer. I hope that the Government will consider the need for such provision to ensure that new technologies push forward.

Kerry Pollard: My hon. Friend mentions the USA, which is held up as a model of excellence for small businesses. Does he realise that in this country it takes but a day to set up a new small business, yet in France and Belgium it takes eight weeks, in Germany it takes six weeks, and so on? That is what we are doing to encourage our small business sector and to ensure that it is easy for people to start small businesses.

Ian Gibson: Absolutely, and the same is true of products that have to be regulated and ratified. In the medical world, which I understand a little, the interaction of the National Institute of Clinical Excellence, in assessing whether a product is ready and safe for the market, is extremely important. We are not quite as fast as the Belgians in such matters, but we are getting there. We are learning to regulate speedily, and to ensure that our products are the best and the safest. So I welcome the Government's exciting initiatives.

Peter Duncan: I welcome the opportunity to contribute briefly to this important debate. As has been said, it is truly astonishing that this Labour Government are somewhat picky in terms of which manifesto commitments they choose to honour. They could have honoured the manifesto commitment to have an annual report on small business issues without unduly troubling the usual channels.
	I have 12 years' experience in business, although at a different end of the spectrum from that of my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman). I hope that I can contribute something to the debate, perhaps in the form of a reality check. Some of my colleagues in the small business community would be totally astonished to read the Government amendment to the motion, which
	welcomes the steps that the Government has taken to make it easier than ever before for people to start their own business,
	and states that
	the Government has created a pro-enterprise tax environment.
	Those comments would cause considerable consternation in the small business community, and rightly so.
	Small businesses are a vital part of our economy that we cannot choose to ignore lightly. I was struck by the new report by the Federation of Small Businesses, which suggests that without small businesses we would have no economy at all. Research shows that between 1995 and 1999, the net number of jobs created by small firms was 545,000, compared with just 218,000 created by large companies. Even more important, according to the report more than 1.5 million jobs were lost in established firms during that time, but new firms created 2.3 million jobs. That is the churn effect of business: as old businesses mature and eventually tail off, jobs are replenished, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells said, from the gene pool of new businesses.
	How do we create the next generation of new businesses? Frankly, we make it worth their while. Many in entrepreneurial circles believe that currently, the effort is not worth their while, given the endless taxation, regulation and means-testing of benefits. As a result, the benefits to those with ideas for starting micro-businesses in particular are very marginal.
	This issue is important because business start-ups are stagnating. I refer the Secretary of Stateas I tried to do at the beginning of the debateto the position in Scotland, which is in stark contrast to her somewhat complacent opening remarks. The Scottish Government's review of the business birth rate strategy shows that business start-ups in Scotland have been in steady decline since 1997. The number has fallen from 24,000 in 1997 to a disappointing 16,000 in 2001. That is a 31 per cent. decline in the number of new businesses in Scotland. The Secretary of State did allude to the fact that there is a lower propensity to create small businesses outwith the south-east of England, but the fact is that the situation is getting worse. Outwith the south-east of England, fewer and fewer people are trying to set up new businesses.
	Of course, part of the reason why we need continually to set up an increasing number of new businesses is that we are losing an increasing number at the other end. In Scotland, 2,500 businesses were liquidated or declared bankrupt in the first half of 2002an increase of almost 15 per cent. on the previous year. Why are businesses being regulated? It is in some respects because their eye has been taken off the ball in respect of having to cope with the endless stream of regulations from the Government.
	Every time I visit a small business in my constituency, I am struck by the marginal effortthe late night effortthat has to be taken into account when dealing with regulations. There is a belief within Government circles that introducing regulation will only have a marginal effect in itself, but the simple fact is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells said, that it has a cumulative effect. Another regulation is another half hour every month to complete a burden that can be so destructive of a small business's ability to compete in its marketplace.
	On a visit to a small business in my constituency, I was struck by correspondence that described the chaos produced by having to deal with the Government's new system of tax credits. The horrendous effects of that change on those in receipt of tax benefits have been well documented, yet exactly the same chaos has ensued for businesses seeking to administer the system. In my constituent's case, the business employs a relatively small number of people, who have to act as the Government's Benefits Agency in implementing the changes consistently. Significantly, they have to disburse the funds before they receive them back from the Government. In some cases, including that of my constituent, it is a burden that small businesses could well have done without, as it severely impacts on their ability to conduct what they exist to dogenerate business and income for themselves and their community.
	I was struck by the dramatic nature of the figures on regulationssummed up by the fact that there are 14.8 new regulations every day. Scotland also has a Scottish Executive, which has implemented an additional 1,309 statutory instruments since it was created. That amounts to a level of regulation that, frankly, we can do without. Scottish business is being unnecessarily burdened and put at a competitive disadvantage, which inevitably has an effect on our wider economy. The Scottish economy is underperforming in the UK. Indeed, the Scottish economy has underperformed in the UK economy in every single quarter since 1998. We have lagged far behind the UK average for the past five years. The Scottish economy has expanded by less than 12 per cent. compared with nearly 19 per cent. at UK level. As Scottish Members know, the Scottish economy has been in decline for the past five successive months.
	As I said in an intervention on the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Brian Cotter), the position is made considerably worse because his Liberal Democrat colleagues colluded with the Labour-Liberal Executive to do away with the uniform business rate policy introduced under a Conservative Administration, which had provided a level playing field for Scottish business. The first thing that that Executive did on reaching Holyrood was to abolish it, to the extent that we now have a 9 per cent. surcharge on business in Scotland. That is unacceptable, because we end up with poorer businesses in Scotland and disincentives north of the border.
	I conclude by alluding to one further issue, whose importance cannot be overestimated for the futurebroadband, which has been mentioned in passing. My constituency is rural and none of my constituents is able to receive broadband services. There will come a point where two-speed Britain will become even more obvious than it is today. Businesses in my constituency do not have access to broadband services, so they cannot compete on a level playing field. Regenerating rural areas through the development of small and micro-businesses will not be possible without access to those services, so I urge the Government to take the extension of broadband far more seriously, particularly for the small percentage who do not have access and for whom there is currently no prospect of gaining access. It is an unacceptable position, which the Government should address.
	Businesses in my constituency and throughout Scotland are operating with one hand tied behind their back. They are administering regulations left, right and centre for the Government and at some point that will have to stop. Small businesses deserve a fair deal.

Henry Bellingham: First, I wish to declare my interests, which appear in the register. I also wish to welcome my hon. Friends the Members for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) and for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) to the shadow DTI team. Both have substantial business and industrial experience and will add much to what we are doing.
	This has been an excellent short debate, with some well-informed contributions, many from Members who have business experience and have read balance sheets in anger. In that connection, I refer to the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Brian Cotter), who has much experience as a small business man, the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle), a distinguished former Minister at the Department who gave us a colourful tour of his constituency, complete with an explanation of geophysical barriers, and my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman), who probably has more large business experience than any other hon. Member. I am sorry that I had to miss the start of the speech by my near neighbour, the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson), but no one in the House knows more about knowledge transfer, so whenever he speaks on business matters he is always listened toas, indeed, he is listened to whenever he speaks in Norfolk. We all know that my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan) has had much experience in different businesses and his comments about Scotland were worthwhile and constructive.
	I also wish to pay tribute to the various small firms groups that lobby Members assiduously. They include the Federation of Small Businesses, under the inimitable Stephen Alambritis; the Forum of Private Business, for which Garry Parker is extremely energetic in telling us what his members feel; the all-party small business group, under John May and Alan Cleverly; and the CBI small business team, under Matthew Fell. They all do a very good job of ensuring that we are properly briefed.
	One key theme that kept recurring in the debate is the ever-growing burden of red tape and tax on small businesses. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) pointed out, that burden falls disproportionately on small businesses. He mentioned the total burden of 20 billion and pointed out that, proportionately, the cost to very small businesses of complying with employment legislation is up to 50 times more than it is for larger businesses. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells pointed out, using his Asda experience, more regulation normally helps bigger firms in their competition with smaller firms, because of the way in which the burden falls. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk) pointed out that, on average, small businesses now spend between 25 and 28 hours a month dealing with paperwork.
	It is not the individual burdens, the different regulations and statutory instruments and new taxes that are show stoppers or deal breakers by themselves, but it is the combined, collective and accumulated weight that is now causing every business grave concern. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells said, there is now a real cultural problem. There is also a systemic problem, because of the ratchet effect. My hon. Friend put it colourfully when he said that we are tackling an avalanche with a toothpick.
	On that point, Martin Temple of the Engineering Employers Federation said recently that the accumulated burden of regulations and taxes is now destroying jobs. He stated:
	Manufacturing competes globally and the government has a clear choice between protecting our competitive advantage, or continuing the trend of the last few years of the gradual erosion of our flexible, low-cost environment.
	If we continue to make the UK a less welcoming environment for manufacturing companies
	and small businesses
	then business will simply vote with its feet and the movement abroad of our manufacturing base will accelerate.
	When we raise the point about red tape and burdens with the Government, they tell us that, because unemployment is still so low, it does not really matter. It does matter, though: 660,000 jobs in manufacturing have been lost since 1997. The recent CBI trends survey showed that 40 per cent. of small firms experienced a drop in new orders over the previous four months, and 39 per cent. said that output had declined. Jobs have been lost, but what about the thousands of jobs that small firms could have created had they not been deterred from taking on extra staff?
	My hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk and his team went to Manchester the other day and met a number of small business men. When we asked what their two main concerns were, they cited the recent increase in national insurance contributions and tax, and the cost of taking on more staff. There is therefore an opportunity cost in the jobs that have been lost and in the ones that were never created in the first place.
	Are the Government listening? New burdens are still being placed on business. The Criminal Records Bureau has just announced very big increases in its charges for vetting care homes personnel. I received a letter dated 16 June from a well-known care and nursing home in my constituency. It stated:
	Without consultation and almost without notice, the CRB is about to start charging nearly three times more than it does currently for checking the records of our future employees.
	This excellent proprietor goes on to say:
	There is one further very sore point to raise with you. Originally, the statutory regulations required all nursing homes to complete statutory checks on all their staff by April 2003. However, because the CRB was struggling so much to meet its responsibilities, we were asked to postpone having these checks done until October 2004. Ironically, we will now have to pay dearly for our co-operation on this. We will now be charged the much higher new fee for checks which would previously have been carried out a much lower fee.
	We are talking about an extra cost to the care homes sector of 14 million. That is another burden on business that will be appearing in the very near future.
	My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) referred to a matter that was also raised by a number of other hon. Membersthe great increase in the number of industrial tribunal cases. Last year, there were 130,000 tribunal cases in this country. How many more will there be this year?
	The Secretary of State talked about the work-life balance, and people's right to flexible contracts. That is a minefield: if an employer fails to follow the procedure to the letter, the employee has recourse to an industrial tribunal. The fear shared by many Opposition Members is that we are talking about a disgruntled employees' charter.
	What action is the Department taking? There are some well-intentioned schemes. We support the small firms loan guarantee scheme, but have the Government delivered joined-up government on behalf of small businesses through the Small Business Service? Has that service been, throughout government, a proper champion of small businesses? If it is to act as a genuine voice for small businesses at the heart of government, surely the service needs to report direct to the Prime Minister, and to be separate from the DTI? The Opposition feel very strongly that much of the service's 400 million budget needs to be properly evaluated, and put under closer scrutiny.
	Many different schemes are covered by section 8 of the Industrial Development (Financial Assistance) Act 1982. Although the Secretary of State said recently that there has been proper evaluation of the small firms loans guarantee scheme, what about the regional venture capital funds, the UK high-tech fund, and the community development finance institutions? What about the bridges fund and the community development venture fund? I am not saying that those are bad schemes, but no proper evaluation has been done. When will the Government perform that evaluation?
	My final point is very simple. The Secretary of State's hands are tiedby other Departments that keep putting more burdens on business, and by Europe. The Conservative Government put a huge amount of effort into successfully negotiating an opt-out from a job-destroying social chapter. Within days of taking office, the Government gave up the opt-out. In respect of the agency workers directive, the CBI stated recently that, had we kept the opt-out, all the fuss over the directive would have been irrelevant, as Britain would have sat on the sidelines while our European colleagues squabbled away.
	Why cannot the Secretary of State make the day of every small business man in the country and say that the Government will renegotiate our social chapter opt-out? Unless the Government take radical action to reverse that trend, small businesses will never receive a really fair deal. That is why I urge hon. Members to support our motion.

Nigel Griffiths: I join the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) in congratulating his colleagues who have been promoted to the Front Bench. I pay tribute to Britain's 3.7 million small businesses, which are responsible for generating 1 trillion in our economy and employ 12 million people.
	I give thanks to the organisations that represent them and that have become my close advisers: the British Chambers of Commerce; the Federation of Small Businesses, especially its driving force, its chair, John Emmins; the Institute of Directors; the CBI SME Council and the Forum of Private Business. I also thank the Small Business Service, which in three short years has made a real mark on behalf of businesses for Britain. Incidentally, the SBS produces an annual report; I think that the hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan) suggested that it did not. The Small Business Council also produces reports and, in November last year, we produced our own report, The Way Forward, which was widely welcomed by small businesses.
	I like to get out of the Department of Trade and Industry every week if I can and I visit small businesses throughout the country, so I have a good understanding of the problems that they experience. The hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) said that the Forum of Private Business had told him that its members expected lower growth than at any time since the Labour Government came to power. Although that vexes me, it is in stark contrast to the situation a decade ago, when the forum expected no growth at all. Its membership was falling and its members were going to the wall.
	Several contributors to the debate made claims about the volume of companies going bankrupt, but I think that their figures were from Conservative central office, rather than from Barclays and others who have conducted proper surveys. The hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman) said that the stock of businesses was reducing. That is not true. The latest Barclays figures state that start-ups in the first quarter of 2003 totalled 107,00012 per cent. up on the same period last year. Those are important facts.

Archie Norman: The Minister may be aware that he is misquoting me. The stock of businesses is not just a function of the new businesses created but also of the number of fatalitiespeople who have gone out of business. I was quoting figures not from Conservative central office but from the DTI, which show that the stock of small businesses is stablethere has been no increase in the last five years.

Nigel Griffiths: I have the figures to which the hon. Gentleman referred. He is being rather selective. On closures, the most recent annual figure, which indeed comes from the DTI, is 435,000. That is considerably less than the comparable figure a decade ago in 1992 when more than half a million companies went to the wall; the same number went to the wall in the previous year. In fact, the start-up market is healthy and, even better, the survival rate is the best for a decade. The House should take those important facts into account.

Peter Duncan: Is the Minister proud of his record in Scotland, where 31 per cent. fewer businesses are being set up this year than at the start of the Labour Administration?

Nigel Griffiths: It is important that companies and practices in Scotland parallel the best practices in the rest of the United Kingdom, and I am happy to showcase them.
	The hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale stated, first, that there was no annual report on small business, and he was wrong. Secondly, he criticised the Government's broadband policy, but did not acknowledge that 30 million is going to regional broadband projects. That includes a substantial sum for Perth, the Western Isles and south-west Scotland, if not for his constituency. Thirdly, he said that it was more difficult now than ever before to start a business because of red tape, but he should consider the problems that people face. The Inland Revenue has now produced a form for start-up businessesit is a five-page booklet, but we inherited a 44-page booklet.
	Again, the figures for the regulations and statutory instruments that are now produced are greatly in our favour: 1,452 general SIs were produced in the most recent year; 10 years ago, the figure was 1,692. In 10 years, there has been a substantial drop in the number of new regulations, so we do not take lessons on new regulations from the Opposition.

Mark Prisk: Is the hon. Gentleman denying figures that come directly from the Library, which clearly show that, under this Government, the number of regulations has gone up by 50 per cent.?

Nigel Griffiths: Absolute rubbish! I have the figures in front of me, and I have quoted them. If the hon. Gentleman wants to hear the total, in case he thought that I was being too specific in referring to general SIs, I shall add in the local SIs. The figure now is 2,221. The figure that we inherited is 3,291, and the figure for 10 years ago is 3,359.
	The difficulty of starting a company was mentioned, but let me quote a previous, respected figure:
	when this reaches the point where you may need 28 separate licences, certificates and registrations just to start a business, then I say again: this thing must stop.
	That was the noble Lord Major, speaking at a Conservative party conference in 1992. [Hon. Members: He is not a lord.] He is a noble person anyway.
	It now takes one day and less than 85 to start up a business in Britainour record is among the best in Europe. It is interesting that, in a motion that seeks to undermine small businesses, the Conservative party pays no respect to the position of small businesses, the role that they have played and the help that they have been given. Compared with when we took office, people in 700,000 fewer small businesses have to fill in VAT forms on their tables on Sundays, because we have raised the VAT threshold. In addition, raising the statutory audit requirement to more than 1 million has helped 150,000 small businesses. Small businesses have made a real difference to this country.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) made a very powerful plea for ensuring that there are more social enterprises and that more is done in line with the Phoenix fund and other regional funds to help not only small businesses to start up locally, but local communities too. When I launched the OneLondon initiative yesterday, I was able to pay tribute to a Brixton-based company that was refused money

David Maclean: In order to save the Minister's career, I beg to move, That the Question be now put.
	Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.

Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:
	The House divided: Ayes 190, Noes 343.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments):
	The House divided: Ayes 323, Noes 185.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Mr. Deputy Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That this House agrees that small and medium-sized businesses are crucial to the prosperity of the nation and will be responsible for many of the new jobs and much of the future innovation in the economy; welcomes the steps that the Government has taken to make it easier than ever before for people to start their own business; acknowledges that the Government has created the economic conditions of macro-economic stability and low and stable interest rates in which small business can grown and prosper; believes that the Government has created a pro-enterprise tax environment; and applauds the Government for improving access to finance for small and medium-sized businesses, removing unnecessary regulations and providing world class business support.

Peter Luff: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Yesterday, as you know, the House passed a draconian and very tight programme motion on the Hunting Bill for its recommittal to the old Standing Committee, requiring that Committee to report by Monday next week. The first opportunity for the Programming Sub-Committee to meet, for the convenience of the Chairman and the Clerk, was at 6.15 this evening.
	The Programming Sub-Committee met, it was not a particularly easy meeting, and the motion was controversial. Eventually, at about 6.50 this evening it was agreed that the Committee would probably meet at 9.25 am tomorrow, and the Clerk left the Committee Room to ensure that the cards were put on the board so that members of the Committee were aware of the decision of the Programming Sub-Committee. At that stage, it was an informal decision on which no vote had taken place. It was an attempt to ensure that hon. Members were aware of the fact that the Committee would meet tomorrow.
	I have just been to the board and the cards are still not there, so no member of the Committee can know formally that the Committee is to meet tomorrow, at what time or where. Furthermore, the time of the meeting has been changed from the usual time of 8.55 am to 9.25 am. There will be considerable confusion tomorrow morning, as a result of the excessively tight programme motion. As no formal notification has been given to members of the Committee that the Committee is to meet, can it properly meet?

James Gray: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is that not symptomatic of the fact that, contrary to any precedent that I can find in Erskine May or anywhere else, the recommittal of the Bill to Committee has taken far less time than any previous recommittal and is greatly more controversial than other recommittal? Most recommittals are only for technical matters that need to be corrected by the Committee. This is the first occasion that I can find, in any precedent that I have looked at, on which such a controversial and difficult matter has been returned to the Committee in this way.
	Giving us only two days in which to table amendments, write speaking notes and consult outside bodies is an extraordinary way to treat the matter. Symptomatic of it is the fact that the Clerks have asked for extra time tomorrow morning. They have asked us to sit at 9.25 am to allow them extra time to get the amendments, and so on, in order before the Committee sits. Surely it would be more proper for us to come back to the House to request that the Committee sit next week, so that we have more time properly to consider the difficult amendments to such a controversial matter?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: May I say to the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) that the House has taken a clear decision on recommittal, and that is not for the Chair to comment on this evening? With regard to the cards that were the subject of the first point of order, that is entirely a matter for the Chairman of the Committee. I understand the concern of the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff), and I understand that every effort is being made to get the cards in place as quickly as possible. We must now move on.

John Whittingdale: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We understand that tomorrow the Government intend to publish a White Paper that will contain major policy announcements about the future of the national lottery. We further understand that the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport is to give a press conference and a major speech on the matter, but given previous rulings by Mr. Speaker, I am sure you would deprecate it if such announcements were made at press conferences and on the Today programme, but not through a statement in the House. Have you had any indication that the Secretary of State intends to make a statement to the House?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have no information as far that point is concerned, but Mr. Speaker has made his views on these matters very clear on many occasions and the hon. Gentleman has now put his point firmly on record.

Eric Forth: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If what my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale) says is true, it would be very helpful and reassuring to the House if you were prepared, through your good offices, to let it be known to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport that there should be no question of her touring the studios or giving a press conference before coming to the House in order to make herself available to be questioned about the White Paper, which is, by definition, a major policy statement. Mr. Speaker has repeatedly made it clearhe did so recentlythat on policy statements above all, the Secretary of State must come to this House first. It would be helpfulI do not think that this is an unreasonable requestif you now made that very clear, to ensure that the Secretary of State is under no illusions about the views of Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I can only repeat to the right hon. Gentleman the point that I have already made. Mr. Speaker feels extremely strongly about these matters and I have no doubt that those on the Government Front Bench will have heard the points that have been made.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation) and Order of 4 June,

Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993

That this House takes note with approval of the Government's assessment as set out in Budget 2003 for the purposes of section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993.[Margaret Moran.]
	Question agreed to.

Endometriosis

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.[Margaret Moran.]

Anne Begg: I am delighted to have secured this debate on the treatment of endometriosis. I am chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on endometriosis, and tonight's debate coincides with a mass lobby that was held this afternoon in Westminster Hall. It was organised by the two charities that work with sufferers of endometriosisthe National Endometriosis Society and the SHE Trust.
	I must begin, however, by blaming my constituent, Shelby Thomas, for my presence here tonight. If it had not been for Shelby, I would still be as ignorant of this gynaecological condition as the vast majority of the population and, I have to admit, some of the medical profession. It was Shelby who wrote to me describing how endometriosis had devastated her life. She asked me to become involved in lobbying for more resources and helping to raise awareness of this debilitating condition. Believe it or not, until today I had not met her face to face. We had corresponded by letter and often spoken on the telephone, but we never managed to meet up until she made the long trek down to London today to attend the mass lobby in Westminster Hall. I am delighted that Shelby and her friend Amanda, who is also from Aberdeen, were able to stay for the debate. They have a sleeper to catch and I hope that they will still make it, but they are in the Gallery now listening to this debate.
	It was thanks to Shelby that I innocently wandered along to the inaugural meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on endometriosis two years ago. Even more innocently, I found myself being elected as chair to the group. I felt a complete and utter fraud, as I knew so little about endometriosis at the time. I knew little about its causes and effects, and about what could be done to alleviate the worst of its symptoms. It is said that a year is a long time in politics, and I now know so much more about the condition that I am even more determined to do everything I can to help ensure that sufficient resources are available for diagnosis, treatment and awareness raising.
	Endometriosis is a gynaecological condition that affects 2 million women in the UK. It is often an extremely painful disease, especially during menstruation and after intercourse. Sufferers can experience infertility, fatigue, relationship problems and depression. It can frequently lead to lost days at work. Consequently, sufferers can lose their jobs and have to deal with the financial insecurity on top of everything else. Yet this crippling disease, which is so common and affects so many women in our communities, is little known or understood.
	There is a lack of knowledge about endometriosis that ranges not only from those of us in this place, but to educators, the medical profession and young women who may suffer from the condition but have never received an accurate diagnosis.
	Shelby Thomas's story is typical. If I may, I will explain a wee bit about her background. She suffered pain from the age of nine, but it was not until she was 27 that she was diagnosed as having endometriosis. When she visited her general practitioner, she was told, as so many are, that it was merely bad period pains and that she would have to learn to live with it. Eventually, she was referred to a gynaecological specialist, but that specialista woman, who she thought would feel more sympathywas as unsympathetic as her GP. It was not until she insisted on seeing another consultant that she finally received the right diagnosis. At the age of 28, she had a hysterectomy; now, aged 31, she is post-menopausal. That is not an untypical story, and it reflects the difficulty, first, of getting the level of pain that is being suffered taken seriously, then of getting an accurate diagnosis of what exactly is the matter.
	I asked for tonight's Adjournment debate not only to bring this widespread but little heard of condition to the attention of the House, but to ask the Government to end the situation whereby it takes seven years on average for an endometriosis sufferer to be accurately diagnosed. That is an awful state of affairs, and it is leading to prolonged and unnecessary suffering by endometriosis victims. I ask the Government to provide the necessary investment to end that lack of awareness in the health service and particularly, if the Minister is able to do only one thing, to concentrate that funding on GPs. They are the first line of service. It is to GPs who women with severe gynaecological pain first present, and we depend on GPs to think that it might be more than just a severe period pain. If GPs and practice nurses are made aware of endometriosis and what its symptoms are like, hopefully more women will be referred to an endometriosis or gynaecological specialist much more quickly, so that one of the treatments can start.
	There is no cure for endometriosis, but there are some treatments, not all of which work for every person. Once a woman overcomes the first hurdle in getting an accurate diagnosis, two types of treatment may be possible. The first is drug therapy, whereby endometriosis sufferers are given hormone drugs that mimic pregnancy or the menopause to prevent the growth of the endometriosis. Often, however, the endometriosis grows back and the sufferer has to undergo another course of medication or surgery. The second option, surgery, can be very radical. Sometimes it is keyhole surgery, but as often as not it is open surgery and, again, it is not necessarily the end of the matter because the endometriosis can grow back. A well balanced diet can also sometimes alleviate the symptoms of endometriosis.
	Since I became chair of the all-party parliamentary group on endometriosis, I have heard the testimonies of many sufferers who have described the combinations of surgery and drug therapy that have been used, but have brought them no relief. Just this afternoon, after a lobby in Westminster Hall, we held a meeting in one of the Committee Rooms upstairs, where, as women told their story, other women frequently found themselves in tears because the story was all too familiar to them all. It was the story of being told that all they had was a bad period pain and that they should grow up and stop being such a wimp; of the difficulty that they have with relationships and the understanding that is required of their husbands and partners; of the search for an effective treatment; and, worst of all, of the constant pain that is often never relieved.
	I want to pay tribute to the two main charities that carry out the work with endometriosis sufferersthe National Endometriosis Society and the Simply Holistic Endometriosis Trust, which is better known as the SHE Trust. Their work is complemented by that of many local organisations, all of which offer services and support to those with the conditionfor instance, free all-year confidential helplines, usually staffed by volunteers. They have UK-wide support groups, and provide replies to medical questions from endometriosis experts. It is quite difficult for women in rural areas, or areas where no member of the gynaecological team may be an endometriosis expert, to obtain such information. They also offer self-management and volunteer training courses. There is, of course, the website that everyone has nowadays; there are publications and information leaflets; and the groups organise national endometriosis health days and lobbies of Parliament. There is a tremendous amount of voluntary support, and it is thanks to the hard work of those organisations that endometriosis is finally getting on to the health agenda.
	One of the all-party group's initiatives of which I am very proud is our organisation of a seminar at the end of April last year. We invited a number of GPs, gynaecologists, researchers, nurses and endometriosis sufferers, as well as parliamentarians, to engage in a much needed sharing of information in Portcullis House. It was a very successful day: it focused people's minds, and enabled them to concentrate on what they wanted the Government to do. We were lucky in that the Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing, and Community Safety, my hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Ms Blears), was able to attend before being transferred to the Home Office in the recent reshuffle.
	This was the first time that a Minister had attended an endometriosis event, and many of us remarked that that represented a sea change: at last the Government were prepared to act positively. Indeed, the Minister described endometriosis as a key issue for Governmentciting its long-term nature and the fact that the waiting time for accurate diagnosis was staggeringand said that medical training and awareness must be a top priority. She also said that specialist centres were still on the agenda for consideration. I invite the new Under-Secretary of State for Health to associate herself with those remarks, and to assure us that that is still the Government's position.
	A number of suggestions were made at the seminar, and we hope that they will be translated into action in the coming year. One was the establishment of national treatment centres to provide specialist help. Arguably the most important point, however, concerned the need for a national framework. That has worked very well in the context of diseases such as cancer, as we have seen in England and Wales andalthough perhaps not in quite the same wayin Scotland.
	There was a great deal of discussion about the need to raise awareness of the condition among women and health professionalsparticularly school nurses, who can explain to young girls what may be going on in their bodies and not be dismissive when they present with severe period pain. It was felt that charities involved with endometriosis needed support, and that there should be a mechanism allowing a consistent programme of dialogue between doctors, consultants, the national health service, voluntary organisations and parent forums. The all-party group played its part in organising that first seminar, but we hope to arrange more in the coming yearsperhaps dealing with different aspects of the condition.
	Inevitably, there was the ubiquitous request for extra fundsfunds for research, and for treatment and awareness-raising. The Minister has listened patiently. I hope she will ensure that endometriosis moves up the priority list when it comes to deciding on NHS funding. The well-being of many women with the condition depends on that.

John McDonnell: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg). Many women came here today to tell us their stories, which were heartrending. This is the third lobby that we have had, and on each occasion women have left the Palace of Westminster with a little more hope than they had when they arrived. The hope with which they left today was that a Minister who had already expressed her concerns about the condition, and who would respond to this debate, would work with us and concentrate on the issues on our agenda in the coming year.
	The all-party group has established itself around that agenda this year. There are several key factors for us now. First, the awareness campaign is crucial. We thought that one of the most effective ideas would be for local organisations, working with their national organisations, the NES and the SHE Trust, to work in harmony with the Department in developing an awareness campaign, using their own resources, of course, but with a little additional resource from central Government. That programme of work could be effective in raising awareness not just among the medical profession but among all others who come into contact with sufferers.
	Secondly, we want to develop a research programme in our work for the coming year. Already we have identified, in debate after debate and discussion after discussion, the lack of research into the condition and the paucity of resources to research it. Although this is a plea for additional resources, we feel that, in its impact on the overall economy, it will be cost-effective. Too many women and families are losing days at work as a result of the condition; in fact, they are losing whole careers.
	We have also suggested work to develop treatment centres, but the important thing for us is to get the condition on the agenda of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence. Many arguments have been advanced that it is not a life-threatening condition, so it has not been given the priority of other conditions. We have heard today of the experiences of many people and their families, where it has become life threatening, particularly because of its effect on people's mental health and the risk of suicide as a result of the condition.
	We urge that priority be given to the condition. We know that the Government are sympathetic. We want to work directly with the Government through the all-party group and with the national organisations to prepare a programme of work for the coming year, which will raise the hopes and spirits of the many women who have suffered from the condition.

Melanie Johnson: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) on securing the debate on this important subject. It is a subject to which she has devoted considerable time and energy as chair of the all-party group on endometriosis. What makes it all the more fitting is that today, as she has mentioned, is national endometriosis awareness day. There has been much activity around Westminster as a result. I was particularly struck by her account of how she came to be involved in the issue. I recognise the fact that it is often through our constituents that our attention is drawn to these important subjects.
	Endometriosis is the second most common gynaecological condition in this country; it is second only to uterine fibroids. It affects up to about 2 million women. It is estimated that between 3 and 10 per cent. of women aged between 15 and 45 years have endometriosis. In women who have difficulty conceiving, the rate rises to about 25 to 35 per cent. It is a condition that remains with a woman intermittently throughout the reproductive years of her life. For many women the continuing recurrent pain and other symptoms can make life difficult or even intolerable.
	This is a puzzling illness steeped in myths. Many theories have been put forward as to what causes the condition. The fact is that we do not know. Symptoms can range from mild discomfort to disabling and crippling symptoms in its later stages. As my hon. Friends the Members for Aberdeen, South and for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) have mentioned, it is a disease that can have lasting effects on a woman's ability to conceive, to work and to maintain relationships. We cannot afford to underestimate the importance of endometriosis and its effects on many people.
	Women can develop endometriosis at any time, although it is extremely rare for it to be diagnosed following the onset of the menopause. Outdated ideas about who is likely to have endometriosis are unfortunately still common. There remains a belief that it is an illness of career-oriented women over the age of 30, although we appear finally to be moving on from the school of thought that believes pregnancy will sort it out.
	Endometriosis is not always easy to diagnose. The poignant stories that my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South has told highlight that. The NES has estimated that it can take up to seven years for a woman to be diagnosed. That is a staggering statistic and simply not acceptable in the NHS of the 21st century. It can mimic or accompany other causes of abdominal pain, such as irritable bowel syndrome. It is also important to exclude pelvic inflammatory disease, also a cause of pain and suffering in many women. Laparoscopy, the examination of the pelvic area through a small incision into the abdominal cavity with an instrument with attached light, is the only sure way of diagnosing endometriosis. It is important for everyone concerned that endometriosis be recognised early, referred for treatment and handled sensitively.
	I could list the many treatments available, but I want to leave aside the medical management of the disease and its symptoms, the opportunities for surgery and the use of the contraceptive pill, because there are other points that I should like to concentrate on in the 10 minutes that I have left.
	A lot of women are looking to complementary therapies to help alleviate the symptoms. The Department has commissioned the Prince of Wales's Foundation for Integrated Health to publish information for patients on the safe use of complementary and alternative medicines. That will include advice on how to choose a regulated and competent practitioner.
	My hon. Friends the Members for Aberdeen, South and for Hayes and Harlington made particular reference to the need to increase knowledge, understanding and awareness of this issue. We certainly support GPs' increasing their knowledge of endometriosis. At first pass, endometriosis may not be an obvious diagnosis; however, there are clear pointers that GPs should be able to recognise. They should certainly always think of endometriosis in cases of prolonged painful periods, painful penetrative sex and unexplained infertility. And they must refer women with such symptoms for a laparoscopy at the earliest opportunity. Early diagnosis is essential for this condition.
	I know that the all-party group and the NES would like to see more awareness campaigns on endometriosis, particularly for younger women, who are increasingly showing symptoms of this disease. I am delighted to announce that we will fund the NES to produce two information leaflets. One will be aimed at raising awareness among women and encouraging those with symptoms to discuss them with their GP. The other will be specifically for GPs, highlighting the symptoms to enable GPs to identify them and to refer women for diagnosis and appropriate treatment. This is a very positive step forward that I hope will be seen as a continuing indication of this Government's commitment to improving the lives of women with endometriosis.
	Today, women rightly expect to receive more information about their health, and they are keen to access information on individual health problems. Armed with such information, they want a proper and full discussion about the options that are available to them. Of course, it is important that a woman discuss endometriosis fully with the doctor providing her care. Self-help groups do play an important part, however, and we should not underestimate the importance of patient support groups, and of the patients themselves working together on a voluntary basis, in raising awareness of endometriosis and providing support for others in the same situation. Indeed, it is invaluable for a woman to find someone elsewhether at the end of a phone or face to face, as has happened todaywho can appreciate what she is going through from personal experience.
	Many of these self-help groups are organised and supported by voluntary organisations that help women who suffer from endometriosis. I should like to acknowledge their role in providing support and advice for such women, and the role played by individuals in setting up those groups and advancing the issues that we are discussing. The NES is the only body in the country to devote itself exclusively to this matter. It works tirelessly to encourage and sustain mutual support among sufferers through its network of support groups. It encourages greater awareness of the condition and its consequences among the medical profession and the general public. I am delighted to say that the Department of Health works closely with the NES and with other organisations such as Women's Health and Women's Health Concern, which offer help and a range of information services to endometriosis sufferers. Indeed, they receive financial support for the good work that they do through our section 64 grants scheme.
	I hope that my comments have emphasised the Government's continuing commitment to services for endometriosis. We do recognise, however, that there are good examples of best practice work being undertaken, and that there is a long way to go before we can establish good communications between every doctor and patient. I know that the NES, in particular, would like more complex cases to be treated in a limited number of tertiary centres, with more general care being given in secondary centres. I am aware that some specialist clinics treat advanced cases of endometriosis, but those have been developed locally in response to need, as opposed to being organised nationally. Such specialised commissioning is available only for a few very rare conditions that have to fulfil strict conditions. I would be happy to consider the NES's views, but I would need to be convinced that this was the best way of organising those services.
	As I said earlier, we shall be addressing the issue of raising awareness of endometriosis among both women and general practitioners through the development of the information leaflets. I know from what my hon. Friends have told me this evening and from what I have already read and heard, that this campaign and the organisation for awareness are central to ensuring that yet more women do not have the experienceand the resulting trauma, both physical and mentalof the constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South. I hope that the leaflets will be of enormous benefit both to sufferers and to GPs and will result in quicker diagnosis and a better quality of life, which we all want for all the women who suffer from endometriosis.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at four minutes to Eight o'clock.

Deferred Divisions
	  
	Defence

That the draft Armed Forces (Review of Search and Seizure) Order 2003, which was laid before this House on 28 April, be approved.
	The House divided: Ayes 432, Noes 0.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Immigration

That the draft Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Juxtaposed Controls) Order 2003, which was laid before this House on 5 June, be approved.
	The House divided: Ayes 266, Noes 164.

Question accordingly agreed to.